A stellar line-up of Indigenous musicians will play alongside the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in a live performance celebrating the music of Archie Roach.
A Gunditjmara-Bundjalung elder, famend singer-songwriter, and member of the Stolen Generations, Uncle Archie died in July 2022 on the age of 66.
The live performance line-up for One Track contains didgeridoo participant and composer William Barton, singer-songwriters Emma Donovan and Jess Hitchcock, and ex-Tiddas musician Sally Dastey.
Rapper Radical Son and musician Dan Sultan may even make their debuts with the orchestra.
One Track music director, Uncle Archie’s longtime good friend Paul Grabowsky, stated placing the live performance collectively had been emotional, due to their friendship and his big esteem for Uncle Archie’s work.
“I feel he is one of many best singer-songwriters on this planet, and positively one in every of our best,” the famend musician informed AAP.
Enjoying his music with a recent solid of Indigenous musicians is very significant, Grabowsky stated.
“It brings a whole lot of currents collectively for me and I really feel very, very glad that it is occurring.”
The buddies first met in about 1995 within the South Australian city of Pimba, the place Grabowsky interviewed Uncle Archie for an ABC TV sequence Entry All Areas.
It was the beginning of a relationship that might final throughout many years and plenty of musical tasks: Uncle Archie even requested Grabowsky to supply the album that accompanied his memoirs.
Uncle Archie’s final efficiency with the symphony orchestra in early 2022 was the unique efficiency of One Track: The Music of Archie Roach on the Sidney Myer Music Bowl.
One Track brings the backing of a full orchestra to his seminal songs, resembling Took the Youngsters Away, Jamu Dreaming and Weeping within the Forest.
But it is a delicate stability, in accordance with Grabowsky, as a result of the actually vital a part of Uncle Archie’s songs had been the phrases and tales.
“The position of the orchestra is to create an surroundings for these songs to stroll via,” he stated.
“It is shining a lightweight on the great thing about the songs, however attempting to not get in the way in which of what the songs are basically about.”
One Track: The Music of Archie Roach is on July 5 and 6 at Hamer Corridor, Arts Middle Melbourne as a part of the orchestra’s NAIDOC Week program.
