The Aboriginal Father - The Marais Project

’The Aboriginal Father’ - which appears on The Marais Project’s ’Australian Monody’ album - is part of the Australian Melodies song cycle (1841-1863) which contains 28 songs written by Isaac Nathan in colonial these songs, Nathan paid tribute to Aboriginal musicians as the first in the land. In 2021, Linda Barwick and Jakelin Troy identified and claimed the Song of the Maneroo Women, as a songline of the Ngarigu women of the Snowy Mountains. Nathan inverted the song The Aboriginal Father and juxtaposed it against Handel’s Peni tu per un’ingrata from Ezio 1732. Nathan was the first composer to create a representative compositional style fusing Aboriginal and European music in his Australian Melodies. (David Crowden) The song and the poem present powerful evidence that at least some white settlers realised that the colonisation of Australia was having enormous negative consquences for the health and well-being of the First Nations’ owners of the land. The Aboriginal Father A native Song of the Maneroo Tribe. Versified by Eliza Hamilton Dunlop. The Shadow on thy brow, my child, Like a mist o’er the clear Lagoon, Steals on with presage, dim and wild Of the death clouds’ direful gloom. Our Tribes droop by each Native stream Where the founts which have fed them lie; And White Man’s fire sends forth its gleam, O’er the Batwan where they die. And thou my boy! the last - the first - Green leaf of a smouldering tree! A stranger’s eye will crush the burst, Of a Warrior’s lament o’er thee. Performers: Susie Bishop, soprano & violin; Jennifer Eriksson, viola da gamba; Tommie Andersson, 9-string classical guitar The Marais Project – directed by Jennifer Eriksson _______________________________ Produced by Llew Kiek Sound Engineer – Chris Doherty Mastered by Michael Lynch, Shoehorse Sound Video by James Fraser Second camera - Kumar Sambhav Gupta Australian Monody is released on the MOVE Records label and streams on all major platforms including: Spotify - Apple Music -