Season Preview 2020

The Canberra International Music Festival has announced its 2020 season, with a strong focus on Indigenous voices. The Festival will open with a brand new work by composer and Yuin woman Brenda Gifford, based on the elements bagan, miriwa, ngadjung and ganji (earth, wind, water and fire in Yuin language), and the Festival will feature First Nations artists including the Tiwi Island Strong Women, didgeridoo virtuoso and composer William Barton, “dreamtime opera diva” Delmae Barton, Yolŋu songman Daniel Wilfred, Ngiyampaa, Yuin, Bandjalang and Gumbangirr artist Eric Avery, and drummer and rapper DOBBY.

Brenda GiffordBrenda Gifford. Photo © Marissa McDowell

“Nothing is more important at this point in time than giving Indigenous musicians a voice and a presence on the concert stage,” Artistic Director Roland Peelman told Limelight. “Not because the classic concert stage is the only one that matters, but because it has been the privilege of white Western audiences for too long. We have to stop pretending it is too hard, or too delicate, or too fraught to bring our Indigenous brothers and sisters inside the fold. It’s...