Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Event Details

“(Cheetham’s) storytelling goes to the heart of our sense of self.” Sydney Morning Herald.

Acclaimed Australian Indigenous soprano and composer Deborah Cheetham AO shares her unique life story and the musical journey to discover her belonging. “Aboriginal people have always known their belonging and we have done that through song”, she says. “It’s how we’ve given meaning to everything in our world, but it’s more than a song – it’s a map to our identity”.

Songs of Belonging combines music and storytelling with intimate, powerful and enlightening results. It continues the moving stories of Cheetham’s other celebrated works, including White Baptist Abba Fan and Pecan Summer, Australia’s first Indigenous opera.

Songs of Belonging will premiere new works by Cheetham in the languages of the Yorta Yorta, Gunditjmara and Boon Wurrung people together with the music of Catalani, Cilea, Puccini, Dvorák, Richard Strauss and Vaughan Williams. Accompanied by pianist Toni Lalich, this is a unique narrative recital by one of Australia’s most admired performers.

Duration: approximately 80 minutes, no interval.

Dinner and Concert Packages available

Featured non-Australian music: Catalani, Cilea, Puccini, Dvorák, Richard Strauss, Vaughan Williams

Further information for this event is available online at the event's website or by phone on (02) 8256 2222

Featured artists

• Music of Deborah Cheetham Fraillon
• Performer Deborah Cheetham Fraillon
• Performer Toni Lalich