Grace Koch Grace Koch i(A28532 works by)
Gender: Female
Arrived in Australia: 1974
Heritage: American
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BiographyHistory

Grace Koch came to Australia from Boston where she had taught music and was a singer specialising in mediaeval and baroque music. She has been an Archivist in charge of the recorded music and oral history collections at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Canberra, where she has also worked as a Native Title Research and Access Officer.

Most Referenced Works

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon Dyirbal Song Poetry : The Oral Literature of an Australian Rainforest People St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 1996 Z346752 1996 anthology poetry criticism

'The Dyirbal people of the Cairns rainforest region in North Queensland have a rich heritage of song poetry, reflecting their way of life, their way of looking at the world, and their way of coping with invasion. This pioneering study examines the words and music of 174 songs, across five distinctive styles of performance, each with its own metrical pattern and linguistic and musical characteristics, describing the social context in which the songs were sung and explaining their message.

As sung by nineteen Dyirbal singers, this collection explores the poetic tradition of a culture which flourished in Australia long before European impact. As a detailed record of an ancient and disappearing literary tradition, it is invaluable. For language and music specialists it provides the unique vocabulary and grammatical patterning so characterisitc of Aboriginal song'. (Source: Back cover, UQP 1996 edition)

1999 winner Stanner Award
Last amended 9 May 2005 09:17:36
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