Community Choirs & Musical Groups

Dr RAHMAN (Fong Lim): Madam Speaker, I recognise and celebrate community choirs, as well as some community musical groups. I do so for some very pointed reasons. I have gotten up and recognised art for its economic value in our society a number of times. I have done it for its cultural value. Today I am getting up to talk about its social impact; it is kind of fitting on a day when we have been talking about all sorts of things in relation to social cohesion. Music is a binding and harmonising force, and it does wonders in our society and our polity.

I used the break between the last sittings and this one to get involved in some of our great community musical groups to show support and because, quite frankly, I needed a sanity check. I started off my tour of ensembles with the Darwin Chorale, which has been around for 40 years. It will celebrate its 40th anniversary soon which is a big deal. For those of you who are looking less interested hearing about the Darwin Chorale now, you all looked super excited on Anzac Day morning when they were the ones singing the national anthem for us and volunteering to provide us a platform to be at that event.

I started off my musical tour there. I note that the foundational choir of the Darwin Chorale, Nora Lewis AM, was this week awarded an honorary doctorate at the Charles Darwin University. Nora, I am terribly sorry; I tried to get leave to come and help award your doctorate, but I was not able to get out of the parliament. It is recognition for her community service over a great many years.

I moved on from there to spend time with the Vocalective, an offshoot group from the Darwin Chorale which does a fantastic high-end super art music. The group did a concert celebrating the music of women composers. It is not the kind of thing we get every day, and it is phenomenal stuff. I want to take a moment to read a tiny snippet or two from their program:

In 2017 on a list of the 50 best conductors of all time, none were women. On the same list in 2023, eight of the top 50 were women. It’s a similar state of affairs with composers. The top 20 most frequently performed contemporary works in 2019 were all written by men. In 2022, nine women made the list.

In the world of pop music the situation is completely different. Women are at the forefront …

The first song we sang out of here—and it was wonderful; we could have all rejoiced in voice in doing it— was by the British composer Ethel Smyth, who was the person who led the suffragette movement in 1910 in support of women’s rights. It was wonderful to be involved with something like this and to sing the anthemic music that underpinned it.

I shout out to Shani Bryceson, Leonie Thomson, Fiona Wake, Laura Wade, Annette Anderson, Nora Lewis, Sarah Lynar, Jennifer Rivett, Alastair Burns, Mike Hore, Lee Levett-Olson, Craig McGiffen, David Ray, Greg Anderson, Callum Bowles, Brian Forester and Noah Vladcoff for letting me sing along with them in what was truly a beautiful celebration of music and a moment of great social cohesion.

I went along from there to another great set up, the Arafura Music Collective, which did phenomenally exciting music for a concert in the Anglican Cathedral, featuring Lucy Vallentine, Lily Coats and Sam Vallentine singing jazz a cappella music; a flute and guitar duet, featuring Claire Kilgariff of Kilgariff fame along with Brian Cullan; the Darwin Brass Quintet of Jessica Anderson, Sam Vallentine, Jethro Llewellyn, Kabir Khera and David Parkin; and the Early Music Mob with Bill Grose who is the principal of the NT Music School and Rosemary Antonini. We culminated by celebrating music for the kids by playing the Bluey theme, which was fantastic. It was enjoyed by everyone.

I then got the flu, as some of you may have noticed over the last couple of weeks, and for the first time in a decade I was unable to fulfill my musical obligations. At short notice I had to bail out of two concerts, one of which, Member for Johnston, was on Mother’s Day. I let down a whole lot of mothers and the Arafura Wind Ensemble by not being able to go to cafe De la Plage. The Arafura Wind Ensemble is the original Palmerston concert band, Member for Blain, as you may recall. I note the Member for Blain and his family were at the event and asked me where I was afterwards.

My thanks to Stephen Peverly, the magnificent clarinettist and conductor of that ensemble, Natalie Chin, who runs the music program at Stuart Park Primary School for inviting me to be part of that, and especially to Rachel Wharem who covered all the songs that I bailed on at the last minute for everyone.

On the other end of the spectrum, I also then had to bail on the Seabreeze Festival, which broke my heart because it is a wonderful event, as the Member for Nightcliff has pointed out. The thing that I wanted to see me part of was the Darwin Beach Choir. Those of you who have not seen the Darwin Beach Choir …

K McNamara: Yes, I was in it.

Dr RAHMAN: I saw in the video, Member for Nightcliff; I take the interjection.

It is a choir for the musical and tone-deaf alike—what a wonderful ensemble. If any of you have not seen it before, look up Darwin Beach Choir and look online to watch the group singing You’re the Voice or any of the things they do. It is a bunch of people who come together led by somebody marvellous called Thalia Hewitt, who I do not know and I have not met, but I would like to get involved with that ensemble, and she brings together people to sing songs in community spaces. It is lovely, heartwarming, healing, fantastic stuff that we should encourage.

I also had to bail on the Hot and Cold Big Band, which was playing on the Legends Stage at the Seabreeze Festival. Fortunately, I was able to join the band on 30 April instead at UNESCO International Jazz Day for a Jazz emergency with the Railway Club when it was one saxophone player short to accompany its swing dancers who do great music and great community building work every week.

I wrapped up my tour of musical things on 7 May by joining the new Navy band, which is stationed in Larrakeyah and starting to form a new ensemble to create new options for our Defence force. So, there is a strategic alignment with me supporting music—chicken wings at Dinah Beach and the Defence agenda. It was fantastic fun to play music with the boys from the Navy.

Nightcliff has the Seabreeze Festival, and it is incomparable. At this time of the year with all the other festivals and events that we have been talking about—how could I compare with Finke or Barunga; the list is long— in earnest, and not to compete with the Nightcliff Seabreeze, in the month of July we will try to initiate the Fong Lim FANFARE Festival. We will have three days of music for the community which …

A member: Really?

Dr RAHMAN: Yes, we are; watch this space. I am proud to announce tonight, albeit to a small but loyal crowd, that we will be starting a small fledgling festival. I will not give it all away tonight; I will simply say this: I represent an electorate with a lot of cool places to make music that people do not know about—lots of airport hangars, industrial warehouses, microbreweries and gin distilleries, seaside venues and some great schools as well.

We will be focusing, over a three-day period, on dinner dances, a few concerts, and we will also be doing an educational component and some masterclasses for schoolchildren. I am indebted to the many people who are helping me work on this in the background, particularly those coming from further afield to contribute to Darwin’s artistic scene over the Dry Season, which is the only time I can lure musicians here from interstate; it is too hot to play any other time.

It will be great fun. I will not say much more about it now. It is a fledgeling first, but I want to demonstrate that, on the smell of an oily rag and with a little bit of electorate allowance help and the community behind us, we will be able to bring life and vitality to my electorate, which is otherwise not just sheet metal fabricators but actually filled with a lot of people who also want to see signs of life and culture and activity.

I would love it if all of any of you are able to make it. I appreciate everybody will have extremely busy calendars at that time of the year, but—touch wood—it will be something for the future and for the ages.

On a serious note, all of these groups are volunteers who contribute to social cohesion. All of these groups are part of the Territory lifestyle.

I will be honest; I am a terrible fisherman. I am allowed to be in charge of sandwiches and music on the boat and never touch any of the tackle or the gear. I grew up here, and the Territory lifestyle was very much about the unbelievable artistic opportunities I had here as a kid. I want to make sure the kids in the future growing also have access to those same opportunities, particularly the ones who are working in the public school system, working with the excellent NT Music School. They require our love and support as well. It is great that we have so many fantastic independent and private schools now as well, but I want to share the love across the entire spectrum. I am pleased to say, without giving too much away, the schools in my electorate will all be joining in my fledgeling enterprise which, touch wood, will go off seamlessly, as all festivals do.

It has been a delight to share this bit of positive news. I look forward to seeing you all at some of the Fong Lim FANFARE Festival.