isn’t your typical choir, singing hymns in the way that you’ve already heard them performed. As the name suggests, the members of this choir are young Indigenous Australians who sing familiar tunes in Indigenous languages.
Founded by Lyn Williams OAM in 2008, the choir aims to help preserve language, pass on language skills to younger generations and enable young singers to gain confidence and develop musical talents.
“The ensembles perform with purpose and responsibility,” says Williams. “It’s wonderful to see the group develop a sense of family, with children of different ages singing together, and natural leaders emerging. The choristers especially speak about how honored they feel to share stories, language and culture from different Indigenous communities.”
The choir aims to help preserve language, pass on language skills to younger generations and enable young singers to gain confidence and develop musical talents.
The 22 young people involved in the program are selected from across the country to take part in the choir, which perform in both big cities and regional towns.
Williams, who has built a formidable career in the music industry, was also the founder of the Sydney Children’s Choir, in 1989, and founded the treble choir Gondwana Voices, in 1997, which has since evolved into the Gondwana National Choirs.
It was after spending time in the Torres Strait that Williams decided to create a choir to perform in Indigenous languages, and help young people express their culture through music.
Lyn Williams OAM says the choir spends time with custodians of Indigenous languages. Image: Gondwana Choirs Source: Gondwana Choirs
“Singing songs in Indigenous languages instills a deep sense of belonging, connection and identity, for young singers in GICC, and builds greater understanding of the incredible diversity of Indigenous Australian cultures for the audiences they perform to.”
Williams says that the choir sings in several Indigenous languages, mainly from those around the Torres Strait Islands, especially Thursday Island. They add new languages from places that the choir travel to for performances. So far, those languages include Bunuba, D’harawal, Yidinji and Gadigal.
Singing songs in Indigenous languages instills a deep sense of belonging, connection and identity, for young singers in GICC, and builds greater understanding of the incredible diversity of Indigenous Australian cultures for the audiences they perform to.
The children spend time with the custodians of Indigenous languages, and get to know that region’s history and traditions, Williams says.
“For some of the choristers, singing in GICC renews language for families where it may have been lost, and for others, singing and sharing language is a natural part of their interaction with family and community, and deepens their community.”
Learning and helping preserve those languages is, Williams says, something the choir members view as their “greatest responsibilities”.
Sharing traditions abroad
There has been an upswing in recent efforts to the hundreds of Indigenous languages spoken across Australia, and educate international observers Australians about our incredibly diverse Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.
The GICC has three hubs at the moment - Cairns, Campbelltown and Inner Sydney - and they’re about to add a fourth: Vienna, Austria.
In a partnership with the Vienna Boys Choir, the GICC will travel to Vienna in October to perform two concerts. It’s the second time the choir will travel overseas to perform, having visited Austria and Germany last year.
Williams says the partnership will help both choirs to understand each other’s cultural backgrounds, as well as their shared love of music.
Australian composer Owen Elsley and Yidinji elder Gudju Gudju Fourmile have been commissioned to write new music for the combined choirs, which will be based on a dreaming story of the Yidinji nation, in the Cairns region.
For audiences, Williams says the experience of being witness to such historic languages performed today was often quite an experience for them. For audiences overseas, Williams says the concerts open up people’s awareness of how diverse Indigenous languages are, and that many people are curious to learn more.
“The choir taught some traditional Torres Strait Island songs and dances to children in collaborating choirs in Frankfurt, Maribor, and Vienna, and this was a wonderful way to bring the children together. We have heard that those songs are still heard echoing through the hallways of the school of the Vienna Boys Choir!”
is held in the first full week of July. It is a time to celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history, culture and achievements.
The 2017 theme - Our Languages Matter - aims to emphasise and celebrate the unique and essential role that Indigenous languages play in cultural identity, linking people to their land and water and in the transmission of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history, spirituality and rites, through story and song.
To learn more,
