All Seasons Chalice
 

Music by Ash Dargan

 

Artist's Biography

Artist's Comments on The StarHouse

Audience Comments and Reviews

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TERRITORY
Compact Disc, $15.00

Territory is a rhythmical dialogue between the spirits of the land and our own innate sense of what is culturally known as the living spirit, that which connects us to all life in the natural world. Ash uses digital recordings of nature collected throughout the Northern Territory to serve as the landscape upon which he plays his didgeridoo. These recordings of birdcalls, crickets, frogs and environmental sounds build one upon the other creating the textures and feel of each track. The music of Territory really pulses with the living spirit of Australia.

Artist's Biography

Ash Dargan, an Australian indigenous recording artist world renowned for his mastery on the Didgeridoo has been pushing the boundaries of contemporary world music for the last eight years. His distinct blend of Australian indigenous and contemporary world music captures the essence of one of the oldest cultures on earth and with it transcends the boundaries of time. His music has been described as the soul of the Australian Dreamtime landscape with a timeless quality reflecting a deep connection and reverence for the spiritual wisdom of his ancestry.

A member of the Larrakia Nation, the traditional land owners of Darwin in the Northern Territory of Australia, Ash is an ambassador of his culture through his music, storytelling and live performances. Ash was classically trained in music from the age of eight on trumpet and came back to his cultural roots at the age of twenty two. His grandmother and great uncle, both traditional elders of the Larrakia people were instrumental in his musical adoption of the Didgeridoo and its deeper cultural significance. Through them he came to know of the Didgeridoo's unlimited potential for the expression of rhythm and its ability to represent the power of the natural and spiritual worlds. The vocal harmonies used in traditional corroboree‘s (ceremonies) and the natural voice of Australia’s native song birds have also had a great influence on his musical compositions.

In 1997 Ash tasted his first major success recording with world music producer Jim Wilson on a compilation album entitled "Tulku Season of Souls," a Polygram release that went top ten in the US World Music charts.

After touring abroad in 1998 Ash returned to Australia and was snapped up by the most successful indigenous recording label in Australia, Indigenous Australia, creating over the next few years a body of work that has sold over 500,000 units. Ash's exploration into world fusion rhythms with his releases Earth Rhythms, Ash Dust & Dirt and Sticks Bones and Song Stones have become popular world drum and Didgeridoo cd's in Australia, Japan and the USA. In 2000 Ash’s release through Sony Australia “Indigenous Rhythms” was nominated for Release of the Year at the Australian National Indigenous Music Awards 2000.

After a sell out national tour of Japan in 2001 Ash went back home to the Northern Territory and over the next two years created his seminal work TERRITORY a multi media live performance show enabling him to take audiences around the world on a journey into the creation myths of the Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime. In 2003 Ash released the music of Territory on CD entitled "Territory - 13 sacred journey into Dreamtime."

Ash's commitment to sharing his culture goes beyond his love of musical performance and he regularly gives lectures on Aboriginal culture and music in colleges, schools and universities whenever he is on tour. Ash has performed and lectured at the universities of Virginia, Oklahoma, Colorado and Richland college in Texas as well as given workshops across Japan, Australia and the USA.

Artist's Comments on The StarHouse

“Playing a concert in The StarHouse is an act of intimate passion with a living space. It’s deliciously rich acoustics and full natural reverb lends life and dimension to even the slightest of sounds. The warmth of its architecture embraces the act of musical prayer and responds by holding all within in a deeply felt sacred resonance”

 Audience Comments and Reviews

“In listening to Ash play, I am taken on a deep internal journey. Not only do I hear the music, but I feel the music as it vibrates through me, resonating with a core part of me that senses the familiarity of this music. I have used “Territory” to awaken to in the morning, to dance to, and to enter into that place of inner stillness that finds rest within the sacred and sweet vibrations that Ash allows to flow through him.” ~ Megan Walrod

 

 
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