“A world of music” was the title of the opening concert of the Canberra International Music Festival, and this is indeed what audiences got in the Fitters’ Workshop – an eclectic concert of music and musicians from home and abroad.

Starting and finishing at home, the concert was bookended with works by Australian composer Robert Davidson. Following Ngunnawal elder Aunty Agnes Shea’s welcome to country, Beaver Blaze – an annual tribute to Canberra arts and music stalwart Betty Beaver – opened musical proceedings. This year’s offering was a collaboration between Davidson and didgeridoo virtuoso William Barton, setting the poem White Australia from Oodgeroo Noonuccal’s second volume of verse The Dawn is at Hand. (This isn’t the first time Noonuccal’s poems have been set – Malcolm Williamson drew on the same volume for his Choral Symphony.)

^{William Barton and Luminescence Chamber Singers in the opening concert of the Canberra International Music Festival. Photos © Peter Hislop}

Distant flickers of didgeridoo emerged from behind the audience before settling into a throaty drone as Barton processed down the aisle and up onto the stage. The didgeridoo was soon joined by a...