Join us at the Music Café in the Sydney Conservatorium of Music for a performance and panel discussion as part of the exhibition Ecomusicology in Indigenous Australia and beyond: Music, sound and the environment. The panel event is part of the Music Climate Connections series, a research and knowledge-sharing initiative focused on the connections between music, environment, climate change and the move to net zero. If you have time, we encourage you to arrive a little earlier than the 5:30pm start to explore the exhibition, located nearby at the entrance to the Sydney Conservatorium of Music Library. 

Current ecomusicological research has opened new avenues for exploring human-environment relationships through music and sound. This exhibition shows different relationships between music, sound and the environment in Indigenous societies of Australia and beyond. 

Commencing at 5:30pm, the evening will feature: 

• A performance by Maatakitj, Noongar song maker from the deep south of Western Australia. 
• Exhibition contributors will introduce their works, including Professor Payi Linda Ford, a Rak Mak Mak Marranunggu woman from Kurrindju, who will discuss her artwork Pilu Fire Painting 2025 – Yimin pilu ga woewoe kayyama. 
• A panel discussion facilitated by Georgia Curran & Myfany Turpin on First Nations’ perspectives on ecomusicological research, featuring  
  • Clint Bracknell, Noongar song-maker, composer, and Professor of Music at the University of Western Australia who performs as Maatakitj.
  • Emily Tyaemaen Ford, Rak Mak Mak Marranunggu woman from Kurrindju whose work focuses on Indigenous knowledge, languages, cosmology and practice.
  • Linda Barwick, Professor Emeritus and musicologist specialising in the study of Italian traditional music, Australian First Nations and immigrant musics.
  • Damien Ricketson, composer and academic exploring vibration, the body, and modes of listening beyond what is heard by the ear.
  • April Campbell, Anmatyerr woman, teacher, and artist from Ti Tree, NT.
  • Catherine Ingram, ethnomusicologist who has been working with Kam (Dong 侗) minority communities in southwestern China for over twenty years. 

Following the performance and panel discussion, light refreshments will be served. Please note this event will be recorded and photographed. 

This event is part of the Conservatorium of Music Library exhibitions for 2026. Each semester, the Library works in partnership with Conservatorium of Music academics and HDRs to showcase their work through objects, images, artworks, text and videos. If you have any questions about exhibiting your research, please get in touch with our team via email, hass@usyd.libanswers.com.

Ecomusicology in Indigenous Australia and beyond: Music, sound and the environment can be viewed at the glass space in front of the Conservatorium Library from 13 August until 20 November, 2026. 

Photo by Fiona Walsh