Connecting you with Australian culture online
In 1788, the eleven ships of the First Fleet landed their 'cargo' of around 780 British convicts at Botany Bay in New South Wales. From 1788 to 1823, the Colony of New South Wales was officially a penal colony comprised mainly of convicts, marines and th...
Australian folklore, its traditions, customs and beliefs are based on both Indigenous and also non-Indigenous people's knowledge and experience of history in Australia. Some of Australia's folklore remembers the relationship between Europeans and Aborigi...
The songs and music that has come from people's experiences of living and surviving in the Australian bush has become known in Australia as 'bush music'. The convict songs of the early days of the Australian colonies became the foundation of Australia's ...
A number of organisations promote Australian music and assist Australian musicians and composers. This Fellowship acts on behalf of Australian composers in matters of copyright, composers' fees and the amount of Australian music broadcast on radio and te...
Portrait of Slim Dusty at the Australia Day Concert (i.e. Australia Day Live), Sydney Entertainment Centre, 1984, transparency. Country music, a derivative of folk music, originated in southern and western USA and consisted mainly of rural songs accompan...
In the early days of the Australian colonies, convict ballads and songs became the foundation of Australia's later day folk music and its first original compositions. Bush songs, ballads and music influenced and defined the folk music of the 1950s. Indi...
Australia has had a strong and vibrant jazz scene since the 1920s, commencing with visiting performers and reciprocated by Australian jazz performers touring regularly in America and Europe. Mainstream jazz centres on 'swing', although most jazz styles co...
The Australian Institute of Music has been preparing young Australians for music careers since 1968. This is a portal to other Australian music websites of various genres, including jazz, blues, pop, rock and classical. Australian country and folk music...
Indigenous music in Australia uses the environment itself to generate unique sounds and rhythms. Australian musicians performing across a range of genres, or styles, have achieved international recognition with a unique Australian approach. The opera sin...
Military bands have accompanied Australian ceremonies, parades, church services, mess dinners and performed at concerts on innumerable occasions since then. Band musicians and band music owe a great deal to Australia's Salvation Army. Other Australian p...
Australian singer Little Pattie and the band, Col Joye and the Joye Boys, perform for soldiers of Headquarters Australian Force Vietnam, in the Free World Military building, Saigon, Vietnam. Like rock music, popular, or pop music had its origins in the 1...
Australian Folk Songs (more info)
This collection of Australian traditional and bush songs has words, music and information about each song. It has a comprehensive bibliography and discography and many articles about Australian folk songs and the Folk Revival.
Australian Folk Festival at Kiama (more info)
Held over the June long weekend every year in the seaside town of Kiama, 130km south of Sydney, the Festival is a celebration of traditional and contemporary Australian folk music, song, dance, poetry and storytelling with over 100 performers in 5 venues
Australian Bush Music and Dance, Wongawilli Style (more info)
The Wongawilli Colonial Dance Club Inc aims to promote, preserve and perform Australia's tradition of folk music,dance and song. Events include the annual Australian Folk Music and Dance Gathering held June long weekend and a regular bush dance every Wedn
National Folk Festival (more info)
The National Folk festival is a celebration of music, dance, song and folk culture at Easter in Canberra. The festival has been running for over 33 years and attracts over 47,000 people to the National Capital. On the website find information on next year
The Songs of Henry Lawson Songbook>New edition with 45 new settings - only $30 for members! In 1989 the first edition of The Songs of Henry Lawson was launched by Australian singer, songwriter and performer, Chris Kempster. Australian folk songs have dev...
However, you are seeing this message because your browser does not support basic Web standards, and does not properly display the site's design details. I am wanting to find a particular song that my mother is looking for from around the 1940's-50's or e...
The Songs of Henry Lawson Songbook>New edition with 45 new settings - only $30 for members! In 1989 the first edition of The Songs of Henry Lawson was launched by Australian singer, songwriter and performer, Chris Kempster. This new edition of The Songs ...
Join Miguel & the singers who made this album in a night of chorus singing. When I wrote The People Have Songs in late 1997 I wanted to celebrate a cultural practice of great importance to me - the singing session. followed by A Singing Session!...
Ever since Chris Kempster's untimely death, his friends and admirers have worked hard to bring out a recording that does justice to the breadth and variety of Chris's music settings of Henry Lawson poems. The great Lawson songs â~" from Chris's setting o...
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