Description
The story of music and musicians at the Benedictine Abbey of New Norcia in Western Australia is unique. Located 132km north of Perth, the Abbey was founded in 1847 by Spanish Benedictines who meticulously documented their encounters with indigenous Australians. The Abbey archives house an extraordinarily rich series of documents in Spanish and English, many of which reveal the importance of music and musicians in the Abbey’s encounters with both Aboriginal and Anglo-Irish Australians.
Among the missionaries who arrived in Fremantle in 1853 after a sea voyage of some 113 days, was a young monk from Cuatretonda (Valencia). As an accomplished organist, Odo Oltra (1826-1898) dedicated himself to the musical instruction of indigenous boys. These young singers performed by themselves and in combination with the monks. They sang Masses and many other compositions for up to four voices. The young choristers —as their own sons and grandsons would do some seventy or eighty years later— learned everything by heart. Brother Oltra’s next task was to teach his young aboriginal charges to play Western musical instruments and to read music notation. These efforts led first to a string orchestra of some 20 players, and then to a brass band of 25 players. Archival documents held at the monastery attest to daily performances of three ensembles made up almost entirely of Aboriginal players: a choir, a string orchestra and a brass band. These ensembles were playing regularly at least up until Oltra’s death in 1898.
In the absence of a common language or culture, music became one of the chief means of mutual engagement between the Spanish Benedictines and the Aboriginal population. Indeed, this common interest in music is one of the most consistently fascinating aspects of the mission’s history. The paper is richly illustrated with archival photographs and sound recordings.
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