Resonate Magazine | Australian Music Centre

Image: Sunny Kim  
© Sung Hyun Sohn

The second Peggy Glanville-Hicks Address in 2020 was presented online on 8 December by Sunny Kim - a Korean-born singer and improviser, based in Melbourne. Drawing from her personal experience as a collaborating artist in a global setting, she encouraged other artists to dare to have courage to explore and to build long-term creative relationships. A significant part of the Address focused on her own collaboration with Yolngu song man Daniel Wilfred, nurtured over years of engagement in the Australian Art Orchestra's Creative Music Intensive program.

'In our creative practices of collaboration, there are still many aspects that keep us feeling unsafe to share our authentic truths. There are many unconscious biases, habits, customs, protocols, policies, and systemic injustices that continue to create hurt, misunderstanding and divide. Collaborations, which hold so much potential to create more than what we individually can, often end up causing more harm than good. As music-makers, can we utilise our creative powers and the relational potentials inherent in music to empower the marginalised?' Sunny Kim asked.

Her speech also touched on the challenges of the pandemic era, particularly for an artist of Asian heritage, and her deep and creatively fulfilling relationship with nature. The Address, presented online on the AMC's Youtube Channel, also included archival photographs and other visuals, as well as performances, including the premiere of a new interdisciplinary, collaborative work Distance, created with Melbourne-based artists Tina Stefanou and Emily Bennett.

> You can watch the Address on Youtube (see embedded video) and read the transcript on the AMC website.