Composers
Deborah Cheetham Fraillon AO
Professor Deborah Cheetham Fraillon, Yorta Yorta woman, soprano, composer and educator has been a leader and pioneer in the Australian arts landscape for more than 25 years. In the 2014 Queen’s Birthday Honours List, Cheetham Fraillon was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO), for “distinguished service to the performing arts as an opera singer, composer and artistic director, to the development of Indigenous artists, and to innovation in performance”.
In 2009, Cheetham Fraillon established Short Black Opera as a national not-for-profit opera company devoted to the development of Indigenous singers. The following year she produced the premiere of her first opera Pecan Summer. This landmark work was Australia’s first Indigenous opera and has been a vehicle for the development of a new generation of Indigenous opera singers.
In March 2015 she was inducted onto the Honour Roll of Women in Victoria and in April 2018 received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of South Australia for her pioneering work and achievements in the music.
Cheetham Fraillon’s Eumeralla, a war requiem for peace, premiered to sold out audiences on-country at the Port Fairy Spring Festival in October 2018 and at Hamer Hall in Melbourne with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra on June 15, 2019.
Deborah Cheetham Fraillon’s list of commissions for major Australian ensembles including works for the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Australia String Quartet, West Australian Symphony Orchestra, Rubiks Collective, The Sydney Philharmonia, Plexus Collective, the Goldner Quartet and Flinders Quartet.
Brenda Gifford
Brenda Gifford is a composer and proud Yuin woman whose culture is the basis of her arts practice. Brenda has been commissioned by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, by Canberra International Music Festival for her work Gambambarawaraga (‘seasons’ in Dhurgha language) and the Four Winds Festival. Mungala/Clouds commissioned for American star flautist Claire Chase premiered at National Sawdust New York in 2019. She is First Nations Resident Composer with Ensemble Offspring in 2020 as well as undertaking a Master of Music at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music as part of the Composing Women program. Her ARIA nominated album Music for the Dreaming, a work tailored for children exploring Dreamtime stories, received multiple performances at the Sydney Opera House in 2019, co-presented by Ensemble Offspring, ABC KIDS Listen and ABC Classics. She has toured extensively as a jazz saxophonist as a member of the reggae band Mixed Relations with Bart Willoughby.
Gina Williams and Guy Ghouse
Six times winners, Indigenous Act of the Year at the West Australian Music Industry Awards, Gina Williams and Guy Ghouse use their music and performances to highlight one of the most beautiful and rare languages on the planet; the Noongar language of the southern corner of Western Australia.
Bringing ancient language, contemporary music, stunning vocals, poignant stories and guitar brilliance, Gina and Guy have made it their mission to become agitators for a hopeful future, by rewriting the script through song. Because the only way to address intergenerational trauma is to bring healing and invite everyone back to the campfire.
But rather than talk about it, they’d much rather allow their performances and the power of the music they create speak for itself. Because even though there are less than 400 speakers of Noongar language left, their work has always been about what connects us. You don't need to understand the words; love, loss, joy all means the same things no matter how you say it. Their welcome song Wanjoo, has reached over 1 million people and has been translated into a number of other languages around the world.
Since 2014, they have released four albums, two books, two works for the Perth Festival (Koorlangka and Koort) and an Opera (Koolbardi wer Wardong). They toured the UK in October and November and premiered their latest Opera, Wundig wer Wilura (commissioned by the West Australian Opera) in 2024.