Ruby by Australian Art Orchestra | Archie Roach | Ruby Hunter | Paul Grabowsky

Together and separately, Ruby Hunter and Archie Roach have forged careers that cross musical boundaries. In this powerful collaboration, Ruby and Archie join forces with members of the Australian Art Orchestra to perform songs they have written about their experiences as members of the Stolen Generation. The songs recount Ruby’s birth by the side of a billabong near the banks of the Murray River in South Australia and chart her search for identity, the discovery of hope through love, and Ruby and Archie’s return to the river to build a new life and a new home to mend the wounds of the past. Through lyrical and poignant songs, Ruby’s Story is a tale about the abuse of power and the power of love; about facing up to past wrongs; and our shared responsibility to battle for the survival of our environment and the great river systems upon which all of our lives depend.

"I have been a fan of the music of Archie Roach and Ruby Hunter for many years. I have known them since 1996, when we met during Womad, out in the desert near Woomera. A friend of mine describes Archie's music as 'masterpieces of minimalism', by which he means that the songs have something absolutely essential about them, that not a note or word could be changed.They emerge from his creative process fully formed, perfection. Ruby's have something more mysterious about them, something organic, and able to undergo slight modification during the arranging process.

For her, the order of the events in a song is of the utmost importance. Her songs have a connection to traditional ways of telling stories, with a certain incantatory quality which summons up particular times and places or which announce her identity in very specific ways.

In arranging the songs, I wanted to create little tone poems around the structures, enhancing the storytelling aspect without messing around with the general forms, and being particularly mindful not to upset the simple yet fundamental harmonic language so important to the roving balladeer tradition from which they ultimately spring.The roots of both of their songs can be found within the experience of so many indigenous people around the world, namely in the church, and in the country and blues traditions which express the hopes and dreams of the dispossessed." - Paul Grabowsky "

With an emphasis on improvisation, the AAO explores the meeting points between disciplines and cultures, and imagines new musical forms to reflect the energy and diversity of 21st century Australia. The AAO explores the interstices between the avant-garde and the traditional, between art and popular music, and between electronic and acoustic approaches.

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