Scenes from the Bundian Way

Abstract

Australian landscape art music is often written from the safety of a home: at a desk, piano or computer. What benefits would arise if an art music composer followed in the footsteps of some our great painters and photographers (for example Arthur Boyd and Murray Fredricks), whose “en plein air” works are celebrated for their idiosyncratic and novel perspective? For this work”Scenes from the Bundian Way” composer and media artist Damian Barbeler hiked in the remote southern wild country of NSW, periodically over 12 months with a cinema camera, sound recording equipment and notebook. The resulting work was a feature event of the 2022 Canberra International Music Festival, it’s idiosyncratic character and authenticity born of the overwhelming emotion: wonderment, joy, fear etc, and vivid scenes that I experienced and captured in that region.

This video is a recording of the live premier performance including the footage presented in that event. It includes live narration, original music, live musical performance, projected landscape footage and field recordings. A central theme of the show centres around the Bundian Way, and the rediscovery of that ancient pathway used by traditional peoples by John Blay, the work is also a meditation on the life changing significance of simply walking in nature.

The original music was created by four different composer all of whom have deep connections to that specific country. Composers Brenda Gifford and Erica Avery in particular have a special connection being indigenous and of local Yuin decent.

The work was commissioned for and premiered as part of the 2022 Canberra International Music Festival.