When Noongar man Aaron Wyatt steps onto the stage of the Sidney Myer Music Bowl tonight, he will make history as the first Aboriginal man to conduct a state orchestra in Australia.
Originally from Perth, Mr Wyatt is a violinist, conductor, programmer, and assistant lecturer at The Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music at Monash University Melbourne.
The conductor will lead the performance of 'Long Time Living Here' that will open the program for A Symphonic Soiree.
He told NITV News it was an "amazing opportunity" with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO).
“This opportunity with the MSO represents such a huge step forward, both for me as an individual and for Indigenous representation in Australian classical music," he said.
"It's a shame that it's taken this long really, it's kind of surprising that it's 2022 and I am the first."
On stage, he will be joined by an array of Indigenous talent. Yorta Yorta woman and acclaimed soprano, actor, composer and playwright, Deborah Cheetham AO, has commissioned the performance, while ensemble members include Noongar man Preston Clifton, Kamilaroi man Jackson Worley, Yorta Yorta woman Allara Briggs Pattison and Lardil and Yangkaal woman Maya Hodge.
Adding to its significance of the night will be a performance by four members of Ensemble Dutala, Australia’s first ensemble for classically trained First Nations musicians, who will perform alongside the MSO as part of the inaugural Ensemble Dutala Residency.
Noongar man Aaron Wyatt is making history.
The new initiative was developed in collaboration with Short Black Opera as part of the First Nations Emerging Artists Program.
Ms Cheetham, artistic director of Short Black Opera and founding director of Ensemble Dutala, said that the program was an opportunity to develop the next generation of Indigenous leadership.
"I've been a composer now for some 20 years and in all of those two decades, I had never before written a work for orchestral musicians who were any of our great First Nations Peoples, I wanted to do something about that by making a pathway," she said.
"The weight of low expectation that has been placed on the shoulders of First Nations People since colonisation began, we have the longest continuing and most successful music practice in the world here on this continent and it only makes sense to me that this should translate into opportunity. We should be included everywhere there is musical art."
