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Homer
meets
hip-hop
– holla!
Dr James Humberstone (left), Odysseus Live composer, with Luka Lesson, who wrote the libretto. Student orchestra in background. Photo: Jacqui Smith
O
M @JamesHumbers
Conservatorium
has a hit on its
hands as rap
version of The
Odyssey brings
students and
pros together in
a masterclass
of modern
music making.
James Humberstone
interviewed by
James Wells
26
ne of Australia’s oldest music schools recently
hosted a sold-out performance, by students
and a slam poet, of a rapping adaptation of
Homer’s 3000-year-old epic The Odyssey.
The Sydney Conservatorium of Music (The Con)
opened the musical, Odysseus Live, in late June. It’s
the brainchild of Luka Lesson, a Greek-Australian
slam poet and self-styled “conscious hip-hop artist”,
US music producer Jordan Thomas Mitchell, video
artist Claudia Dalimore, and The Con’s very own
Dr James Humberstone, Odysseus Live’s composer
and a music lecturer. The Con is attached to the
University of Sydney.
Backing this team is a 30-strong choir and
40-piece orchestra – all students from The Con.
Odysseus Live’s themes reflect the refugee crisis
in the Middle East and Europe. Lesson, who wrote
the libretto, says he sees parallels between Homer’s
Odyssey and the refugees of today.
Lolita Emmanuel, a third-year music student, one
of Odysseus Live’s lead vocalists and a choir member,
says the theme of displacement in the musical
resonates with her personally.
History explains why. Emmanuel is of Assyrian
descent. This ethnic group established the Assyrian
Empire around 2500 BC. It was located in modern-
day Iraq, and included parts of Turkey, Iran and Syria.
Its capital was Nineveh, the same place referenced
in the Bible’s Old Testament. Assyria fell in the
7th century BC. Since then, various nations and
empires have absorbed its people.
Many Assyrians migrated during the 20th century
because of persecution and upheaval, such as the
Assyrian genocide by the Ottoman Empire during
World War I.
“As an Assyrian, the notion of displacement is
very familiar to me and my community,” Emmanuel
explains. “I feel like there is this constant sense of
displacement in the back of our minds. After the fall
of the Assyrian Empire in 612 BC, we haven’t had a
country to call our own. Assyrians were spread out
all over the Middle East and the rest of the world.
Like Odysseus, we are geographically and temporally
separated from our land.”
The brains behind Odysseus Live hope orchestras
and other ensembles, nationally and internationally,
will adopt the music score to play alongside a touring
core group of artists. Rap musicals are trending lately,
spurred on by the success of Hamilton, about US
founding father Alexander Hamilton.
Humberstone sits down with Campus Review to
discuss the project.