The Last Post First Nations Inclusion Project, 11-11-2023, Bega Disitrct News

Bega District News

First Nations didgeridoo player Mark Atkins and Australia jazz virtuoso James Morrison play a new arrangement of The Last Post atop the Sydney Opera House

Transcript

00:00 [Music plays]

00:10 Well this project, it goes back a long time, nearly 60 years.

00:17 It would have been about eight, nine I suppose, and it was all about putting them to rest,

00:23 the old people that had died in action, and for them to be remembered here in this country.

00:29 [Music plays]

00:32 I'm Mark Adkins.

00:34 For my mother's people, I'm Yamaji, Wungai and Witi.

00:39 I'm the didgeridoo player.

00:41 [Music plays]

00:47 I'm James Morrison and I'm a trumpet and bugle player.

00:51 So when I was first asked to be part of a project to get together with Mark

00:55 and do a new version of The Last Post, I thought, this is amazing,

01:00 because we get to pay tribute to the tradition by using that piece of music,

01:05 but to stand on top of the sails of the Opera House, you know,

01:08 together with didgeridoo and trumpet, playing this as the sun rose

01:12 and bringing those instruments together, like that Indigenous culture,

01:16 that ancient sound with the sound of the bugle, really, without any words,

01:22 says something about people coming together.

01:26 [Music plays]

01:30 [Music plays]

01:56 Anything that brings us together is necessary, and that does.

02:00 Just listen to it. We're united. We're together.

02:04 My name is David Alan Gordon-Williams.

02:07 I'm 76 years old. I'm a Bundjalung man.

02:11 I did 30 years in the military.

02:14 I'll tell you, this is inclusive for Australia.

02:19 The new arrangement is an opportunity to include our First Nations people

02:25 in that ceremony.

02:27 So my name's Geoff O'Brien.

02:28 I'm the State Secretary for RSL New South Wales.

02:31 I was a medic in the Australian Army in the mid-90s.

02:35 We don't necessarily always recognise the unique role

02:39 the First Nations people played in the ADF.

02:42 I think if you speak to a lot of First Nations veterans,

02:46 you'll find that their experience is a lot more inclusive in service

02:51 than it was outside of service.

02:54 The whole idea of the arrangement is to equally represent First Nation

03:00 and Australian soldiers and kind of create in the arrangement

03:04 that sense of camaraderie that was on the battlefield.

03:07 I'm Ricky Bloomfield.

03:08 I was the audio engineer on this project and co-produced it

03:12 with Mark and Chelsea.

03:14 My name's Chelsea Atkins, and for the last two and a half years

03:21 I've been the project manager of the last post First Nations

03:24 inclusion project.

03:26 You know, what I'd really hope to see would be new traditions

03:31 getting created within ANZAC ceremony and events

03:35 and acknowledgements.

03:37 Not taking away from the old and the tradition,

03:40 because that's so very vital and important.

03:43 It's having an inclusion into it.

03:46 It's really, it's the beginning of something that should have been done

03:50 and said a long time ago, but as they say,

03:53 there's no time like the present.

03:56 [silence]

03:59 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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