H C Coombs Creative Arts Fellowship 2010

MEDIA RELEASE COURTESY OF: Australian Art Orchestra

The Australian Art Orchestra (AAO) has been awarded the prestigious H C Coombs Creative Fellowship 2010 for their ground-breaking work on the Crossing Roper Bar project.

The $33,000.00 fellowship has been awarded to the Australian Art Orchestra who are active in the Crossing Roper Bar project working in collaboration with the Young Wagilak Group.

Crossing Roper Bar is contemporary jazz brought face-to-face with traditional indigenous music – a ground-breaking project that unites the Wagilak Gujarra/Nyilabigi people of Ngukurr in south east Arnhem Land and AAO.

This on-going collaborative project was developed between AAO musicians and the Ngukurr songmen. It is based on an equal exchange of knowledge that began as a dialogue centred on music and developed into a process of collaborative composition that retains the beauty and dynamism of both traditions.

The Young Wagilak Group from Ngukurr have worked closely with the AAO and have created a contemporary interpretation of the cultural traditions. A wonderful marriage of the very old with the very new, Crossing Roper Bar is a celebration of country, of ceremony, and of the power of music to build enduring bridges across cultures, time and space.

Crossing Roper Bar began with a series of workshops in 2005 and brought together some of the country’s great improvisers who worked with the traditional songmen, and has since continually evolved into a captivating performance of extraordinary music, a coming together of the two.

The Fellowship will be provided through the Australian National University Research School of Humanities and the Arts. ‘This Fellowship is an important and highly valued element of this University’s cultural life and one of its features is the interaction, both formal and informal, that occurs between the recipient and the students and staff at the ANU’, says Professor Howard Morphy, Director, Research School of Humanities and the Arts

The H C Coombs Creative Arts Fellowship was established in 1965 by Dr H.C. Coombs, ANU Pro-Chancellor, to encourage creative work in the arts in Australia. The fellowship has supported Australian artists such as Judith Wright, John Perceval, Arthur Boyd, Fiona Hall and Robyn Davidson. The invited fellowships are offered to visual and performing artists and writers on a rotation basis.

Paul Grabowsky, artistic director, Australian Art Orchestra is available for interview.

Crossing Roper Bar is proudly sponsored by Total E&P (Australia). This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

The Crossing Roper Bar CD, recorded in Melbourne is now available online here and available in selected music stores now.