Black Arm Band 'murundak' has won the 2007 Helpmann Award for Best Australian Contemporary Concert!
7 August 2007
The Helpman Awards recognise outstanding achievement in the Performing Arts. Congratulations to all the mob!
The Black Arm Band is a 32-piece ensemble featuring a line up of exceptional soloists performing works from the inspirational songbook of contemporary Indigenous life.
The Black Arm Band was created to perform MURUNDAK(meaning 'alive' in woirrwurung) for the 2006 Melbourne International Arts Festival. MURUNDAK is an extraordinary musical event that celebrates music as an instrument of identity, resistance, resilience and a call to freedom.
The Black Arm Band are amongst the most respected names in Australian indigenous music and include Archie Roach, Ruby Hunter, Bart Willoughby, Stephen Pigram, Carole Fraser, Peter Rotumah, Kutcha Edwards, Kev Carmody, Mark Atkins, Lou Bennett, Joe Geia and Dave Arden. These artists were joined by musicians that have added their own unique artistic voices to Indigenous musical history, including Paul Kelly and Shane Howard. A blistering band led by pianist Aaron Choulai features some of Melbourne's finest jazz instrumentalists.
The Black Arm Band premiered as part of the Melbourne International Arts Festival in October 2006. A big schedule of national and international festival dates is in the planning for 2008 & 2009...