AUSTRALIA | MUSIC
MURRU
MELBOURNE FESTIVAL AND BIG HART IN ASSOCIATION
WITH THE BARDAS FOUNDATION PRESENT
10 SONGS OF FREEDOM FOR JOHN PAT
BIG HART
Image: Greer Versteeg, Belinda Smullen & Tyson Mowarin
FEDERATION SQUARE
Fri 10 Oct at 7.30pm
1 hr 20 mins, no interval
FREE
melbournefestival.com.au/murru
Pilbara country is song country.
In an uplifting opening concert for
this year’s Melbourne Festival, Big
hART joins forces with a luminous
range of talents – including Archie
Roach, Lucky Oceans, Emma
Donovan, John Bennett, Donna
Simpson (The Waifs) and many
more – for a towering evening of
song. MURRU is a musical tribute to
John Pat, a young Yindjibarndi man
who died in custody thirty years
ago, sparking a royal commission
and shining a spotlight on the
increasing rates of Indigenous
incarceration in our country.
Combining breathtaking imagery
from the Pilbara region with
beautiful harmonies and
arrangements, co-written by
inmates from the Roebourne
prison, MURRU is an exuberant and
heartbreaking celebration of our
country – a hymn to the land and
its people, a remembrance of those
we’ve lost and a paean of hope for
the future.
MURRU is part of the Yijala Yala Project, a
long term, multi-platform, intergenerational
cultural heritage project also represented in
this year’s program by Big hART’s production
of Hipbone Sticking Out (see page 56).
The Yijala Yala Project is sponsored by
Woodside-operated Pluto LNG through its
Conservation Agreement with the Australian
Government.
Presenting Partner
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