This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” on Australia Day, it’s an hour of music celebrating the beleaguered continent’s indigenous peoples.
Peter Sculthorpe (1929-2014) devoted much of his compositional output to environmental concerns, such as climate change and preservation of wildlands, and demonstrated an overt sympathy for Aboriginal culture. His String Quartet No. 12 of 1994 includes a part for didgeridoo.
50 years earlier, John Antill (1904-1986) recollected a sacred ceremony he attended, when he came to write his 1944 ballet, “Corroboree.” Among its unusual instrumental effects is the appearance at the work’s climax of a bullroarer.
Embrace endangered traditions of a vanishing land. We head Down Under and outback, on “Didya Hear the One About the Didgeridoo?,” this Sunday night at 10:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
To get you in the mood, here’s ten hours of didgeridoo music:
And a demonstration of the bullroarer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ODGE2f7gLQ