In this unique concert, pianist Gabriella Smart takes the audience on a spoken and musical journey inspired by the narratives of selected pianos from colonial Australia. She invited Australian composers Elena Kats Chernin, Luke Harrald, David Harris, Jon Rose and James Rushford to write works inspired by the narratives of selected colonial pianos in Australia. The pianos still exist in various locations, and their cultural and historical narratives have served to inspire new works that give a unique glimpse into Australia’s colonial history through the eyes of famous artists and Afghan cameleers, telling stories of genocide and the harshness of remote locations.

The result is a living history, revivifying the colonial piano as a significant cultural object: an estimated 700,000 pianos existed in Australia in 1888, with a population of 3,000,000. The program includes a work by Cat Hope that comments on the oppression of colonialism written for piano, ebows and AM radios, and a personal narrative through song on love and loss of homeland, written for piano and electronics by Constantine Koukias. The extraordinary creativity of these composers has resulted in a living history of Australia.