Kutcha Edwards performance for ‘Warta-Kiki: Come Together’ with the Melbourne Youth Orchestra was more of an experience than a show.
Mutti Mutti man Kutcha Edwards is a story-teller and a historian. His words and music tell a truth Australians need to hear. Kutcha explained his song ‘Wait’n (for tomorrow to come)’ was written the day before the Kevin Rudd apology to First Nation’s for the stolen generation, a dark stain on Australian history many factors of the Liberal Party ignore and deny. As a victim of white Australia’s cruel treatment of Indigenous people, Kutcha’s words link a trail from this country’s very first terrorists, the British, right through to the deniers of the upcoming The Voice referendum. Australia hasn’t come far in over 200 years when heartless leaders like Dutton, Morrison and Abbott still wield power and spread their lies.
Kutcha opened with the more recent ‘Singing Up Country’, a finalist for the Environmental Music Prize. “Always been here, nothing to fear, making it clear, never gonna disappear” … “we’ve done nothing wrong, its where we belong”. Every word had meaning.
Kutcha’s show was biographical. His song ‘Photographs’ about three of his departed friends and family, one being Crowded House drummer Paul Hester, speaks about how their spirit stays with us after their lives ceases. The emotion in the words would often overwhelm Kutcha and his emotion would then engulf the audience. Kutcha Edwards’ gift is the power to unite people in a room.
The members of the Melbourne Youth Orchestra and choir from the Victoria College of the Arts accompanying Kutcha transformed all of that emotion into the room. It was amazing to think this orchestra is made up of students, some of who will go on to join the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
Conductor Brett Kelly is also the Music Director for Melbourne Youth Orchestras and himself a one-time member of the MSO. As a one-time student of the MYO (1979) and then member of the MSO and now the educational leader of these students, Brett also has an incredible story. The combined experience, education, history and talent of Kutcha Edwards, Brett Kelly and the students of the Melbourne Youth Orchestra will make this show a treasured memory in years to come.
https://www.kutcha-edwards.com
Kutcha Edwards and the Melbourne Youth Orchestra setlist 18 June 2023 at Melbourne Recital Centre
Singing Up Country (from Circling Time, 2021)
Yesterday’s Forgotten (from Cooinda, 2001)
Waitin’ (from Black & Blue, 2012)
Silence (from Hope, 2007)
The Day You Were Born (from Cooinda, 2001)
Photographs (from Hope, 2007)
I Have A Dream (from Cooinda, 2001)
We Sing (from Circling Time, 2021)
Mother Tongue (single, 2023)
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