[Special] The Grigoryan Brothers: Australia

In this special episode the multi-award winning guitarists Slava and Leonard Grigoryan take us back into Australian history in three enchanting pieces of music. Each track features on their acclaimed album, This Is Us, which arose out of a collaborative project with the National Museum of Australia.

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Over the past two decades the Grigoryan Brothers have established themselves as among the finest Australian musicians of their generation. Several years ago, following a chance meeting at a concert in Adelaide, they were invited to begin an unusual collaboration with the National Museum of Australia in Canberra.

To mark its twentieth birthday the museum invited the brothers to select a series of objects from its collections and to use them as the inspiration for a series of original compositions. The project went forward during the Covid 19 Pandemic and in 2021 the resulting album, This Is Us, was published.

The music engages with a broad range of fascinating Australian histories, from ones connected with the Aboriginal and Torres Islander Strait peoples, to the cricketing feats of Donald Bradman, and those of the nineteenth-century astronomers who first scoured the southern skies.

In a departure from our usual format, we did not ask Slava and Leonard to pick one calendar year. Instead we invited them to play three songs and to tell us about the objects that inspired them. 

This Is Us by the Grigoryan Brothers is streaming now. Read more about the project at the National Museum of Australia’s website.

Show notes

Song One: ‘Love Token’ – inspired by the convicts’ love tokens.

Song Two: ‘Stolen’ – inspired by a gate salvaged from a children’s home.

Song Three: ‘Fortunate Wind’ – inspired by an anchor belonging to HMS Investigator

Years: c.1932 / 1950s.

People/Social

Presenter: Peter Moore

Guest: Slava and Leonard Grigoryan

Production: Matt Hiley in Sydney / Maria Nolan in London

Podcast partner: Ace Cultural Tours

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