Australian Aboriginal Church Music

Australian Aboriginal Church music grew out of a fusion of European Church music with many different Australian Aboriginal languages and music cultures, in the colonial mission era. The mission era was a period of great conflict, nevertheless the mission music survived, and in some cases enabled the survival of Aboriginal cultures.

Australian Aboriginal Church music is memorised rather than written down, but much of it has been recorded by CAAMA (the Central Australian Aboriginal Music Association) and AIATSIS (the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies in Canberra). It is usually performed in local Church centres rather than in city cathedrals or concert halls, because of its close association with the local place of the particular indigenous group. Each Aboriginal Church community Elders group organises its own Church music and liturgies in dialogue with the various Australian Church denominations. The Australian Aboriginal Churches and their diverse liturgical musics are promoted ecumenically by the Aboriginal Elders of NATSIEC (the National Australian and Torres Strait Islander Ecumenical Commission). Each Australian Church denomination has appointed a national Aboriginal Commission, which meets with NATSIEC: one of their tasks is to support and promote Australian Aboriginal Church music.

Certain public Australian Aboriginal music may be sung by non-Aboriginals, but there are sacred and ceremonial songs within the Australian Aboriginal Church music repertoire that may only be sung in Aboriginal Languages by qualified and trained Elders. NATSIEC is currently building a common Aboriginal liturgical music repertoire that visitors to Australian Aboriginal liturgies are welcome to sing with Aboriginal local people. One of these songs is the Our Father prayer, which can now be sung to Aboriginal melodies.

One of the best known Australian Aboriginal Church music groups is the greatly respected Ntaria Women's Choir from Central Australia, who sing the old Hermannsburg Mission music in the Arrernte Pitjantjatjara language of their ancestors. The Church music of the Aboriginal Tiwi people of the Torres Strait is also famous, especially the ceremonial Church music for the "Coming of the Light" Festival.

Link to an article on the Gondwana Choir's projects with indigenous singers -

http://www.riotinto.com.au/ENG/media/38_media_releases_1987.asp

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