As a companion to 'music in Australia', rather than 'Australian music', this book acknowledges the complexity and contestation inherent in the term 'Australia', whilst placing the music of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people at its very heart. This companion emphasizes a diversity of musical experiences in the breadth of musical practice that flows though Australia, including Indigenous song, art music, children's music, jazz, country, popular music forms and music that blurs genre boundaries. Organised in four themed sections, the chapters present the latest research alongside perspectives of current creative artists to explore communities of practice and music's ongoing entanglements between Indigenous and non-Indigenous cultural practices, the influence of places near and far, of continuity, tradition, adaptation, and change. In the final chapter, we pick up where these chapters have taken us, asking what is next for music in Australia for the future.
List of Contributors; List of figures, maps and musical examples; Acknowledgements; 1. Introduction and historiography of music in Australia Amanda Harris and Clint Bracknell; Part I. Continuities: 2. How Yolŋu songs recount deep histories of international trade across the Arafura Sea Aaron Corn and Brian Djangirrawuy Gumbula-Garawirrtja; 3. Torres Strait Islander musics: tradition, travel and change Karl Neuenfeldt; 4. Singing country in the land now known as Australia Clint Bracknell and Lou Bennett; 5. The spiritual in Australia: practices, discourse, and transformations 1879–1950 Michael Webb and Christopher Coady; Part II. Encounters: 6. Cultivating a European concert culture in colonial Sydney and Hobart: 1826–40 Laura Case and Amanda Harris; 7. An early Australian musical modernism Kate Bowan; 8. Country music: Australianizing an American tradition? Toby Martin; 9. The development of the Australian pop charts and the changing meaning of the 'number one' single Jadey O'Regan and Tim Byron; 10. Artist perspective – didjeridu on the art music stage William Barton; Part III. Diversities: 11. Exclusion and inclusion in Australian metal Laura Glitsos and Clint Bracknell; 12. New directions in Australian art music: the curatorial, creative and conceptual Louise Devenish and Talisha Goh; 13. Artists' perspectives – experimental and electronic music in Australia Aaron Wyatt and Cat Hope; 14. Artist perspective – Australian EDM in the 1990s: finding the magic between the art and commerce of the dancefloor Paul (Mac) McDermott; 15. Artists' perspectives – jazz in Australia-the state of play Jamie Oehlers; 16. Diverse musics: shaping music through cultural difference Aline Scott-Maxwell and John Whiteoak; 17. Chinese music performance in Australia Liu Lu and Catherine Ingram; 18. African musics in Australia Bonnie B McConnell and Lamine Sonko; 19. Artists' perspectives-Ngarra-Burria Indigenous composers and their interventions in art music practice Christopher Sainsbury and Nardi Simpson; Part IV. Institutions: 20. Iconic musical sites in Australia Amanda Harris; 21. Festivals as a forum for Indigenous public ceremony from remote Australia Reuben Brown and Sally Treloyn; 22. The Australian children's TV music phenomenon Elizabeth Mackinlay and Katelyn Barney; 23. Youth broadcasting and music festivals in Australia Ben Green and Ian Rogers; 24. Australian multicultural and folk festivals Michelle Duffy; 25. Learning from music in Australia lint Bracknell and Amanda Harris.
Amanda Harris is an ARC Future Fellow and Director of PARADISEC Sydney Unit. Her monograph Representing Australian Aboriginal Music and Dance 1930-70 was shortlisted for the 2021 Prime Minister's Literary Prize in Australian History, and Music, Dance and the Archive, co-edited with Linda Barwick and Jakelin Troy, won the 2023 Mander Jones Award. Clint Bracknell FAHA is a Noongar song-maker from the south of Western Australia. He is an ARC Future Fellow and Deputy Chair of AIATSIS. Bracknell received InASA's 2020 Barrett Award for Australian Studies, has co-translated world-first Indigenous language works in film and theatre, and releases music under the name Maatakitj.
