King Street Public School Performs World First Song
BY DI SNEDDON
Wonnarua elder Uncle Warren Taggart performs plenty of Welcome to Country statements but one particular event was catalyst for a world-first performance of a song by King Street Public School students last Friday.
Uncle Warren was at a concert at Roche estate and was invited back to The Waifs green room for a chat.
Waifs member Donna Simpson wanted to share an idea with Uncle Warren on a song she had been working on.
It is a musical version of Welcome to Country. Donna has changed the wording so it can be adapted to country, in Singleton’s case it is Welcome to Wonnarua Land.
“The whole idea of the song is that you can change the land name according to where it is performed,” Uncle Warren said.
He shared lots of emails with Donna to eventually have the song performed for the first time by King Street Public School’s choir at their assembly.
“I was absolutely stoked to have the song performed in Singleton,” Uncle Warren said after the performance.
Conducted by music teacher Toni Beech and accompanied by guitarist and teacher Joshua Morrison, the students sang the song with pride and emotion.
“We have been practising for a matter of weeks and it is very special to finally perform it the first time in public,” Ms Beech said.