Unsung Heroes of Australian History
Project Description
Unsung Heroes of Australian History
The Unsung Heroes of Australian History project is a collective of four Melbourne musicians who have written and arranged the show’s songs. They are all multi-instrumentalists, singers and songwriters. They are also independently involved in fostering other musicians' development in various ways.
It is an exciting and innovative musical production which looks at people and events in Australia’s history from European settlement right up to the present day. The live show is performed with a narration and evocative slides. We have a CD which comes with a booklet of stories relating to the songs. Our DVD is our finale song 'Unsung Heroes' accompanied by a compilation of powerful images.
The next step is to produce educational resources based on the show to get kids excited about Australian history.
The individuals:
Moira Tyers saw her kids playing with their dolls using American accents, so she started to write songs about our own country and its characters. Loves a bit of history does Moy. She also happens to be an awarding winning songwriter, a fine guitarist, singer, fiddle and accordion player – and Moira’s Anzac biscuits are to die for!
Bruce Watson is a favourite of festivals and folk venues all over Australia. He delights audiences with his silliness and then suddenly floors them with his incisive writing and beautifully delivered stories. He plays guitar, mandolin and snare.
Neil Robertson has a rockier edge and has self produced six albums. He sings, plays mandolin and guitar and is composer of the rousing finale of the show. He is also a sound engineer – very handy when you’re self producing an album.
Wendy Ealey is a singer, guitarist, mandolin and ukulele botherer, and she is an inveterate chatterbox so nestles nicely into the role of narrator in the live show. She is also a graphic designer – useful when you’re sorting out your CD and DVD design and packaging.
We ask the big questions:
• Who shot Ben Hall?
• Whaddaya mean ‘Pa Will?’
• What can you do with old leather belts and felt hats?
• How old was the youngest soldier to die at Gallipoli?
• Who’s got a glacier and a rat named after them?
• How many went to Olegas’ slide night!?!?!?
• Why would you go round town with a bit of chalk in yer pocket!
• Who was Australia's first professional female jockey?
• What was Henry Lawson’s Mum like?
• What used to be where the Sandy Bay MacDonald’s now stands?
We have produced an album and a DVD, perfected the Anzac biscuit, learned how to present Turkish Delight to make it irresistible and we want to do more.
We receive standing ovations and fervent pleas to take our concept to schools and we'd really love to do that, but we are musicians and songwriters, not entrepreneurs, nor marketing experts or teachers who understand how to link material to curricula.
What we'd like to achieve through Pozible:
We want to get kids excited about learning...
Our goal is to make educational resources that will stimulate young people to question what they see and hear and fuel their appetites to find out more for themselves with the guidance of our stories and the learning resources that will arise from them.
And the really great bit is, we’ve found the people with the right expertise, and they’re excited about working with us on our project! We are working in partnership with Australian Teachers of Media (ATOM), who are also very excited about the possibilities of this project.
First stage is a kit for primary kids, then eventually a resource of secondary students followed by apps!
Funding
Our Pozible funding goal is $4,000. With this we can have the primary school kit written, produced, uploaded, distributed and administered.
Any funds raised in addition to this initial amount will go towards recording the most recently written songs and production of the secondary student resource.
We are amazed and delighted at the very existence of Pozible and grateful to have our proposal accepted to participate in this incredible process. We appreciate any support we can receive for this, whether it be financial, or if that is not a possibility for you, spreading the word about the project would be enormously helpful.
Thank you so much in anticipation.
Project By
My name is Wendy and I'd like to tell you abit about me, and more importantly about this project's evolution.
I'm a singer and writer who, for over a decade has been involved in fostering the song writing talent in the Northern suburbs of Melbourne as a coordinator of the Darebin Music Feast Songwriters Award, co-founder of the Darebin Songwriters Guild with Moira Tyers and for five years have coordinated and MCed the Maldon Folk Festival Roddy Read Songwriters Award.
I perform as a solo artist and with my musical partner Moira Tyers in the duo “Ealey & Tyers”. This and the particular focus of this Pozible campaign, 'Unsung Heroes of Australian History', arose out of the Guild.
The Unsung Heroes of Australian History (UHAH) collaboration (Moira Tyers, Bruce Watson, Neil Robertson and myself)gradually took shape from an original idea that Moira had after hearing her daughters playing with their Barbie Dolls in American accents.
She was struck by the lack of Australian content in so much of the material and information that bombards youngsters in their formative years. So she began writing a song series which has blossomed into this concept piece - a musical chronology of Australian History since European Settlement featuring lesser known characters who have had a part to play in this country's development.
The first 'toe in the water' performance was somewhat different as things often are in their embryonic phases. With a line up of eight performers who generously gave of their time and talents, the first presentation of Moy's initial seven songs, plus others from fellow performers was put on at the Darebin Music Feast in 2008. In it's first incarnation it was called "Quiet Achievers". In addition to Bruce, Neil, Moy and I, the musicians who appeared in the first performance were Christina Green, Kerry Ang, Stephen Sharpe and Leticia Maher. It was a lovely chance to perform the songs, and we'll be forever grateful to the first intrepid players who gave the songs their first airing.
When an opportunity arose to perform the songs at the National Folk Festival, financial and directorial considerations resulted in a thorough review of the way the piece hung together. The script was virtually rewritten and the songs' arrangements were further refined. Now it had its new and more appropriate name "Unsung Heroes of Australian History" and after it received a standing ovation at the National, with queues of audience members wishing to speak with the cast, and frequently declaring that UHAH is a must to help school students engage with history, it became apparent that this was a worthwhile work. The journey towards expanding the peformance concept to be a useable education resource in schools had begun.
We love playing the music and performing something that impacts audiences beyond just the appreciation of a good, well played tune.
Whenever we have performed the show, we get hugely warm responses, standing ovations and again and again, pleas from the audience to 'get it to kids'.
We have recently released an album and DVD, and this Pozible campaign will hopefully make our plans to get the content into the curriculum a reality.
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