THE ANU has today (May 10) officially launched a recording studio dedicated to indigenous musicians, with music-minded vice-chancellor Brian Schmidt looking on. 

The new “Yil Lull” recording studio at the ANU School of Music will offer free recording and music assistance to indigenous musicians from across Australia.

The studio will be led by Torres Strait Islander musician, Will Kepa, who describes it as “a place for us, our mob, to come and meet; to create and to share; to expand on our stories; to keep our culture alive and our music alive; and to just keep that fire burning.”

Guests at the launch included the Tiwi Island Strong Women, here from Bathurst Island, singer-songwriter Uncle Joe Geia, classical rapper Rhyan Clapham and Uncle Ozzie Cruz, as well as the School of Music’s indigenous faculty and students, led by composer Chris Sainsbury.

“Yil Lull”, which gives its name to the studio, is a song written and performed by Geia, which originally appeared on his 1988 album of the same name.

At the launch he said he saw a great opportunity for First Nations people, expressing his approval of the fact that the School of Music and the School of Art & Design were right next door to each other on campus.

“In Aboriginal culture, we’ve used our song and dance and we’ve used our art to communicate,” he said.

“We had to tell our stories and keep our important things in either song and dance or painting. A traditional painting has a dance and it has a song to go with it. These are all communicating skills we use to share stories with others in our mob, regardless of their dialect.”

Associate Prof Kim Cunio, head of the School of Music, said he and Sainsbury talked to First Nations musicians and realised that the school needed to make a space that was Indigenous-led and would be free for Indigenous musicians. The pair had made a submission to the vice-chancellor’s “Grand Challenges” scheme on indigenous health in 2019.

Initially, he explained, it was to be a mobile recording studio, but that would now be the second stage of the project, scheduled for 2022.

The morning’s launch concluded with music performances in studio by the Tiwi Strong Women, Geia, Kepa, Sainsbury and Clapham (Dobby).