The Jindera Pioneer Museum will feature the internationally acclaimed Grigoryan Brothers on 23 March. Photo: Rohan Thompson.
ARIA Award-winning guitarists Slava and Leonard Grigoryan are counted among the finest musicians of their generation and will be bringing their musical reflection of Australia ‘This is Us’ to the Jindera Pioneer Museum on 23 March.
Murray River Fine Music (MRFM) has collaborated with the museum to host the event, which is set to arouse some powerful emotions when the unique musical journey is performed in the beautiful grounds of the heritage precinct.
MRFM CEO and artistic director Helena Kernaghan said it was exciting to be able to bring such a stunning original program to regional audiences in what would be the first concert for their 2024 season.
“We are always excited to showcase unique and iconic venues for our artists to perform in,” she said.
“This is a show that I’ve been wanting to put on somewhere around the border and I just couldn’t quite come up with the location until we discovered the Jindera Pioneer Museum; it provides the perfect setting for an event such as this.”
A convict love token, a whole skinned Tasmanian Tiger, Sir Donald Bradman’s cricket bat and a prototype Holden car are among a collection of quintessentially Australian icons to be showcased.
Helena said the objects and music would take the audience from the deep past of early Indigenous Australians to the making of contemporary Australian society.
Slava and Leonard chose 18 objects from a collection of 250,000 held by the National Museum of Australia and composed an entire program of original works based around them.
Between them, the Grigoryan Brothers have received four ARIA Awards (Australian Recording Industry Association) and an incredible 24 ARIA Award nominations. As a duo they have recorded 13 albums. Photo: Simon Shiff.
Among the chosen objects are an ancient ochre of the Majebege rock shelter, a convict love token relating the experience of transportation, the stream anchor from Matthew Flinders’ HMS Investigator, a preserved wet specimen of a whole skinned thylacine, a Kimberley spear point fashioned by Aboriginal people from glass, a cricket bat of the famed Sir Donald Bradman, and the prototype Holden motorcar that began the car manufacturing industry in Australia.
“It’s really exciting and I think the fact that the music is about objects in the National Museum and it’s being performed at a pioneer museum is really fitting and will give extra significance to the performance,” said Helena.
Each of the compositions is heightened by the projection of high-definition 3D video of the particular object and incorporates all of the Grigoryan Brothers’ influences from classical to jazz and contemporary music.
“The power this has on the listener and observer will be palpable.”
They will use a variety of instruments (electric guitar, eight string tenor ukele, 12 string and classical guitars).
The brothers said the objects represented some of our First Nations history, colonisation, migration, innovation and stories of love and loss.
“We were deeply moved by all of them,” they said.
The music was composed during the COVID lockdown with each brother living in different states and is a new direction for them. While they have included original compositions within programs in the past, this is the first time they will be performing an entire program of original works.
“For me I think they have succeeded in giving us a classical art music style, original compositions, that is appealing to everyone. It doesn’t matter what age or background you are or what musical experience you most enjoy, if you are a music lover you are going to be moved by this performance,” said Helena.
This is the first in a series of spectacular musical journeys to be showcased across the year in 2024 by Murray River Fine Music.
The Gregoryan Brothers have been touring internationally since 2003, regularly performing throughout Europe, Asia, Australia and the USA. They have a reputation of performing together so seamlessly as a duo that they “play and breathe as one”.
The show starts at 7:30 pm. Tickets are $45 for adults, $35 concession and only $10 for under 18s. To book and for more information go to The Grigoryan Brothers ticketing website.
The next shows for Murray River Fine Music are The Genius of Shostakovich on 25 May and Piazolla & Tango on 26 October.
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