The Ngarra-burria First Peoples Composers program shifting the classical and new music industry

For generations many Australian composers have tried to assert some kind of sonic distinction in our music, something that might set it apart from the music of Europe or other places. In the search for an authentically Australian sound many turned to using Asian and Aboriginal music and cultural influences. Yet it always had an opposition and composer Richard Mills once stated, “The problem of espousing too strongly the cause of a distinctive Australian music can get lost in superficial gesture” (Australian Composers Debate 1988). He remains unconvinced of such practices.

This turning to our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander music resulted in an occupation of the Indigenous space by non-Indigenous composers, mainly from the 1950s to the 2010s. In terms of numbers a 2019 audit of composer listings at the Australian Music Centre suggests some 60 composers have been involved. Yet since publishing ‘the paper’ Ngarra-burria; New Music and the search for an Australian Sound (Currency House 2019) I’ve discovered that it is in the hundreds. Such ones were being commissioned and programmed, and audiences were finding their ‘Indigenous experience’ via the pen of non-Indigenous composers whilst Indigenous composers remained unheard.

This formed the rationale for the program: that Indigenous composers are there, and that non-Indigenous composers were occupying the Indigenous cultural space. In this presentation we look at Australia’s first Indigenous-led initiative in music composition. In it we are seating cultural agency within a ‘First Peoples first’ context. We are suggesting corrections to the industry, and ways forward. We are also sharing our sounds as Indigenous composers. It is now having a welcome impact.

Christopher Sainsbury was the 2020 winner of Australia's highest classical/jazz music award, the APRA Art Music Inaugural National Luminary Award, which was awarded for effecting an overdue cultural and practical change in the landscape of our classical music sector through the Ngarra-burria First Peoples Composers program.

As a composer Christopher Sainsbury has made a sustained contribution to Australian music since the mid-1980s. As an educational manager he worked for 23 years as the Head of Arts & Media at the Eora Centre—an Indigenous Tertiary College in Sydney. He is an Australian Indigenous composer and since the 1980s has artfully articulated his heritage through many of his works.

Early career commissions were from the Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO) in 1987, leading instrumentalists (eg; Australian flute elder Gordon Yemm) in 1987, the Newcastle Bi-centenary Authority in 1988, and more. This has sustained through until today with recent commissions from the Friends of Chopin Australia in 2018, works for the Canberra International Music Festival (CIMF) in 2019 and 2021, for our nation's flagship choir The Australian Voices in 2020, and a commission from the Sydney Symphony Orchestra (SSO) conducted by Marin Alsopp in 2020.

Sainsbury bases himself in professional, regional and community music arenas. He explores Regionalism and also Indigenous narratives through composition, also surf music in his popular and orchestral compositions, and contemporary guitar composition. He maintains an active career as a guitarist and in 2020 published a new CD (Ocean Song) with Australia's most recorded jazz guitarist of the 1980s - 2000s Dr Guy Strazz.

He is the founder and artistic director for Ngarra-burria: First Peoples Composers (earlier known as the Indigenous Composers Initiative). This is a major new national initiative that is having positive impact on a national and international level. See link here: https://www.limelightmagazine.com.au/news/christopher-sainsbury-wins-major-indigenous-composer-grant/ He was also artistic director for the Sydney Acoustic Guitar Festival 2002 and 2003.

Recent major traditional publications include a Platform Paper 'Ngarra-burria: New Music and the Search for An Australian Sound' through Currency House Sydney, and co-author for a Chapter in the 2nd edition of the Macquarie Atlas of Indigenous Australia.

Staff, students and members of the public can join via Zoom here.
Meeting ID: 864 9883 0235
Password: 116497