Deputy Principal

Moved by Music

I was sitting on the lounge at home last week watching TV and stumbled across a program called The Piano on ABC. I was captivated and moved by the stories of the musicians that were playing in this episode. Two performances moved me to tears as the stories behind their piece were straight from the heart. 

The first one was from Erin Mortimer, the daughter of Steve Mortimer, a famous rugby league player who now suffers from dementia. Her composition was titled ‘Lullaby for the Old Man’. While she was playing and singing, images of her growing up with her dad played on the screen behind. There were images of Steve being a dad as well as images of his playing days for both the Bulldogs and NSW. Erin explained that writing this piece helped her deal with the grief of her dad losing his memory. While Steve is still with us in person, his memories have faded. She also paid tribute to her mother who visits and sits with him every day. The performance resonated with me as over the last few years of my grandmother’s life, she was also in a nursing home. Whilst we visited her regularly until she passed, she left us a long time before that, and that was extremely hard to deal with. 

The second piece was a performance by Peter Salmon. Peter is a Thiinma Elder from Western Australia. Peter sang and was accompanied on the piano by Rose Sitorus who is a linguist and musician. I felt privileged to hear him sing as Peter is the last living fluent speaker of the Thiinma language. We constantly forget that our First Nations brothers and sisters who were here thousands of years before us had their own languages. Indeed, there were over two hundred First Nations languages. I felt privileged as I heard Peter sing in his own language and it is something that I will never forget. His performance showed an act of survival, resilience, renewal, and hope. It demonstrated how songs can carry knowledge, memory, and connection to Country. His performance empasised to me the importance of ensuring intergenerational transmission of language, stories and culture. We are blessed in Australia to have this rich history that a lot of people know little about.

If you get a chance, I encourage you to watch the episode. It was a profoundly moving show that deserves to be shared with everyone.

Adrian Byrne

Deputy Principal