A revitalisation of the heart and soul.
Presented by: Adelaide Festival
Reviewed: March 16, 2023
Jamie Goldsmith tripped on stage (literally) then proceeded to give the most friendly, and entertaining, welcome to country I have experienced. Jamie Goldsmith is a Kaurna Narungga man from the Adelaide Plains and the Yorke Peninsula. His Kaurna name is Ngungana Kartemeru (First Born Kookaburra) Ilyatpinna (father of Ilya). And this man is a born entertainer! He gave us a brief, but very funny, overview of the history of the land we were standing on as well as the origins of Victoria Square, an historic meeting place for the Kaurna people. He informed us this was where he played the didge as part of his welcome ceremony but William Barton was on the bill and quite frankly he couldn’t live up to the standard set by this world renowned digeridoo player who could coax sounds out of a key-of-A didge mere mortals could only ever dream of.
But wait a minute, this show was all about William Barton and Veronique Serret, not our good friend Jamie. Jamie set a gold star standard in communication and from the moment Barton and Serret stepped on to the stage at The Adelaide Town Hall we were treated to a unique and deeply spiritual evening of indigenous music with a twist.
I first heard Barton play a very long time ago in a caravan park in Mount Isa. I was doing a bit of work at the local Arts Centre. Barton was probably making a buck or two entertaining the tourists. Even then, before he achieved world fame, Barton could make the world go away when he started to play. Barton came unassumingly on to the stage, sat, cradled a guitar on his lap with two beautiful digeridoos arranged in front of him and he and Serret allowed the room to settle. Serret had a beautiful violin on a stand waiting for her on the stage and walked on carrying another which she switched on and allowed the magic of the evening to unfold from her strings that enabled Barton to respond by breathing life and spirit into the hush that descended over the full house.
We were held enthralled by the music, voices, words and beautiful pictures that carried us through an hour of what could be described as a life-changing experience. Serret’s singing voice blended perfectly with the tone of her violin whilst Barton lifted us to another plane as his combination of didge and voice opened a spiritual channel to the land. The words of Barton’s mother, poet Aunty Delmae Barton, gave context to the rhythms and mood of the music, but I was disappointed that the spoken voice sound mix was a bit muddy. I had to strain to make out the spoken text at times.
Samuel James’ moving projections, that smoothly blended with the music, were beautifully conceived. If you got lost in the movement of the sound and allowed yourself to drift through the mostly black and white landscape it was as if time had no meaning. It was the past, the present and the future blended into the landscape of the sound.
This work was originally commissioned as a seven minute piece for the 2019 Canberra International Music Festival and Serret and Barton have fleshed it out to an hour of spiritual experience adding in a some new compositions and previous works, Kalkani (commissioned by the ABC) Didge Fusion and Heartland plus a few more. This was an evening for the heart and soul; beautiful fusion of indigenous and contemporary sounds that gave us Heartland. An aptly titled Festival event.
Reviewed by Adrian Barnes
Photo credit: Russell Millard
Venue: Adelaide Town Hall
Season: Season ended
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