They say that good things come in threes, and last week was no exception.  After several weeks of no concert-going, I went to three events in the space of five days.  the first included a musical representation of the lives of convicts under British rule in England and in Australia; the second, very different, was Carlos and the RHHSO’s exciting and exuberant program of music from South America.  The third was very different again.

This was an extraordinary concert.  The Yorta Yorta singer and composer Deborah Cheetham-Fraillon has written a War Requiem for Peace as her response to the frontier wars around Eumeralla in what is now Victoria.

It’s the sort of piece which really should not work.  The Roman Catholic Requiem Mass was first re-written in English to transpose it into the spiritual framework of the Dreamtime, based on a Creator Spirit and Ancestral Spirits.  It was then translated into the Gunditjmara language, and Deborah CF (I trust she does not mind being thus abbreviated) set these words to music on a grand scale – a huge orchestra, a large chorus and a children’s choir.  Indigenous artist Tom Day has produced artwork for each of the nineteen movements, which was displayed on a huge screen behind the orchestra.

But it does work.  It works very well.  Clearly its main perspective is that of seeking eternal rest for the spirits of the Gunditjmara people, but the spirits of the settlers involved are not forgotten.  There are heart-rending moments of intense agony, spell-binding moments of quiet reflection, and settling times when the music floats effortlessly throughout the auditorium.

The music is well suited to the large space which is the Concert Hall.  All the players and singers, conducted by Benjamin Northey, performed with conviction, and the soloists’ voices, especially that of Deborah CF herself, managed to soar above the combined forces with ease.  The only downside was an over-enthusiastic audience applauding at the most poignant moments, thereby spoiling some of the piece’s magic.

A festoon of microphones implies that the performance was recorded, possibly to be broadcast by the ABC.  Keep an ear out for the inevitable promo!

Deborah CF is a member of the stolen generation.  Her adoptive parents nurtured and encouraged her prodigious musical talents and her boundless energy to make her the musical tour de force that she is today.  It must feel very strange to be a success in a culture which is not your birth culture.

I like to think that every performance of this work is another step, however incrementally small, in bringing a spirit of respect and reconciliation between people who have their historic differences, but who are facing the future hand in hand.