NiTRO Creative Matters

Perspectives on creative arts in higher education

Music

There are many things that need to be remembered in relation to Indigenous Australians. Here are three we may have chosen to forget or have faded enough from our collective memory that they may be considered as forgotten.

I am really proud of our music school. It has accomplished a great deal, rebuilding, decolonising and allowing an evolution in First Nations practice to occur … But this is the easy part, the Western way, the way of doing. What I wish to explore is a process of

When a Music School gets it right pertaining to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander engagement a certain feeling grows within the school. “Feel” is a word that I intentionally borrow from music-making … First Nations peoples must feel that they have a place and a sense of directing certain

In 2020, the ANU School of Music devised an innovative research project aimed at engaging Indigenous composers with an old keyboard instrument, the Henrion piano.

Professor Frank Millward talks to Will Kepa, producer, engineer and director of the Yil Lull Indigenous Recording Studio at the ANU School of Music.

The Limited Hangout: in the field project, was a series of site-specific long form compositions for performers, and optionally electronic sounds in the environment. Six composers … were asked to create works for the project with the following brief …

Music could serve to distract from the weight of everyday stressors, lift our mood, and provide relaxation. Put simply, the speciality of music lies in the fact that it invariably conflates three key drivers of health wellbeing, namely, culture, creativity, and community … rendering it inherently interdisciplinary.

A metaphor is what motivated me to undertake my PhD … I was a full-time high school teacher, teaching English and music, with a background and training in jazz music performance … To me, jazz and teaching were similar. Jazz was a metaphor for teaching.

In the creative and performing arts, resonance is everywhere, both literally and metaphorically … Metaphorically, in moments of connection, performers feel a resonance with their audience – an actor may feel “heard” by their fans; a musician might be “amplified” by a crowd’s roaring applause.

Congratulations to ECU and WAPPA Professor Geoffrey Lancaster who was awarded an AO for his distinguished service to the arts, particularly music, through education, performance, research and philanthropy.