 Award-winning singer-songwriter Gurrumul Yunupingu, from Arnhem Land |
Bridges across the Arafura Sea: For thousands of years, the Yolngu people of Arnhem Land traded with Makassan seafarers from Indonesia. Now, musicians at the annual Darwin Festival are rebuilding these cultural bridges. The group Tanah Merege is a groundbreaking collaboration between the Arnhem Land band Yilila and villagers from Watublapi on the Indonesian island of Flores. Yilila’s band manager Tony Gray and songwriter/lead singer Grant Nundhirribala on a recent visit to Flores found that Watublapi was used by the Macassans as a staging post on their trips to Australia. “There is still a lot more to learn in terms of shared language and culture”, says Gray. Also at the Darwin Festival, Arnhem Land singer Gurrumul Yunupingu performed on-stage with Ego Lemos of East Timor. Yunupingu, described in the Sydney Morning Herald as having “the greatest voice this continent (Australia) has ever recorded”, will be performing at Carnegie Hall in New York on January 22, 2009. See image preview: http://www.photographersdirect.com/simmons/search.asp?lb=9343
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