The didgeridoo is a wind instrument, played with continuously vibrating lips to produce a continuous drone while using a special breathing technique called circular breathing. The didgeridoo was developed by Aboriginal peoples of northern Australia at least 1,500 years ago, and is now in use around the world, though still most strongly associated with Indigenous Australian music. The Yolŋu name for the instrument is the yiḏaki, or more recently by some, mandapul; in the Bininj Kunwok language of West Arnhem Land it is known as mako.
Philip Morris Glass is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimalism, being built up from repetitive phrases and shifting layers. Glass describes himself as a composer of "music with repetitive structures", which he has helped evolve stylistically.
Malcolm Benjamin Graham Christopher Williamson, AO, CBE was an Australian composer. He was the Master of the Queen's Music from 1975 until his death.
David Charles Hudson is an Australian Aboriginal musician, entertainer and artist. Hudson is a multi-instrumentalist and was taught to play traditional didgeridoo from an early age. He also plays guitar, kit drums, percussion. He plays traditional music, as well as more ambient music, country-folk, rock, and new age.
Alfred Francis Hill CMG OBE was an Australian-New Zealand composer, conductor and teacher.
Charlie McMahon is an Australian didgeridoo player. The founder of the group Gondwanaland, McMahon was one of the first non-Aboriginal musicians to gain fame as a professional player of the instrument.
David Banney is an Australian conductor, composer and music educator. He is the Artistic Director of the Newcastle Music Festival, the Artistic Director of the Christ Church Camerata, and Co-Director of the Newcastle Cathedral College of Music.
Alan Dargin was an indigenous Australian musician and songwriter known for being a didgeridoo player. He grew up in Wee Waa and started learning the instrument at age five from his grandfather and other Wiradjuri elders. His signature instrument was over a hundred years old and was made from a blood wood eucalypt. He received his secondary education at St Pius X High School, Newcastle.
Richard John MillsDMus BA(Hons), is an Australian conductor and composer. He is currently the artistic director of Victorian Opera, and formerly artistic director of the West Australian Opera and artistic consultant with Orchestra Victoria. He was commissioned by the Victoria State Opera to write his opera Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (1996) and by Opera Australia to write the opera Batavia (2001).
Richard Leo Tognetti AO is a leading Australian musician recognised internationally as a violin soloist, ensemble player, leader, composer and arranger, conductor and artistic director.
Adam Plack is an Australian-born didgeridoo player, composer and producer, originally from East Brighton in Melbourne. He moved to New York City in 1991 and released four albums before moving into production and composition for meditation music in partnership with Deepak Chopra.
William Barton is an Aboriginal Australian didgeridoo player. He was born in Mount Isa, Queensland on 4 June 1981 and learned to play from his uncle, an elder of the Wannyi, Lardil and Kalkadunga tribes of Western Queensland. He is widely recognised as one of Australia's finest traditional didgeridoo players and a leading didgeridoo player in the classical world.
Liza Lim is an Australian composer. Lim writes concert music as well as music theatre and has collaborated with artists on a number of installation and video projects. Her work reflects her interests in Asian ritual culture, the aesthetics of Aboriginal art and shows the influence of non-Western music performance practice.
Joy Murphy Wandin is an Indigenous Australian, Senior Wurundjeri elder of the Kulin alliance in Victoria, Australia. She has given the traditional welcome to country greeting at many Melbourne events and to many distinguished visitors where she says in the Woiwurrung language "Wominjeka Wurundjeri Balluk yearmenn koondee bik".
Tim Fain is an American violinist, best known for his performances in the movie Black Swan and his work with American composer Philip Glass.
Barry Ernest Conyngham,, is an Australian composer and academic. He has over seventy published works and over thirty recordings featuring his compositions, and his works have been premiered or performed in Australia, Japan, North and South America, the United Kingdom and Europe. His output is largely for orchestra, ensemble or dramatic forces. He is an Emeritus Professor of both the University of Wollongong and Southern Cross University. He is former Dean of the Faculty of the Fine Arts and Music at the University of Melbourne.
Modern didgeridoo designs are distinct from the traditional Australian Aboriginal didgeridoo, and are innovations recognized by musicologists. Didgeridoo design innovation started in the late 20th century using non-traditional materials and non-traditional shapes. The design changes include features that are similar to more familiar musical instruments like the trombone and natural horn.
Allan Zavod was an Australian pianist, composer, jazz musician and occasional conductor whose career was mainly in America.
