Date of Award
2023
Document Type
Masters Thesis
Degree Name
M.A.
Organizational Unit
College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, Lamont School of Music
First Advisor
Zoe Weiss
Second Advisor
Kelly Fayard
Third Advisor
Sarah Morelli
Fourth Advisor
Mitch Ohriner
Keywords
Appropriation, Djilile, Janke, Kakadu, Peter Sculthorpe, True Tracks
Abstract
Tasmanian-born Peter Sculthorpe (1929 – 2014) was one of Australia’s most iconic modernist classical composers of the twentieth century. Kakadu (1988) seems to have sparked the most controversy of Sculthorpe’s works and has become one of his most well-known pieces. In the program notes provided in the score’s foreword, Sculthorpe asserts that “the melodic material in Kakadu, as in much of my recent music, was suggested by the contours and rhythms of Aboriginal chant.” Sculthorpe attributed this melodic material to the Arnem Land chant, Djilile. Consequently, Sculthorpe has been criticized for extracting Djilile from its authentic context as an act of musical appropriation. The published arguments through Australian musicologists and composers such as Jonathan Paget, Amanda Harris, and Anne Boyd have analyzed the issue in terms of creative license. These arguments have also incorporated value judgments of Sculthorpe’s ethics and persona to underscore their reasoning. The purpose of this project is to complicate the discussion of Djililein Sculthorpe’s music by situating its usage within Indigenous Australian copyright lawyer Dr. Terri Janke’s True Tracks: Respecting Indigenous Knowledge and Culture (2021) model and framework for respectful cultural exchange. The previous defenses of Sculthorpe’s work need to be re-examined in order to fit a more modern standard of respectful cultural interaction.
Copyright Date
6-1-2023
Copyright Statement / License for Reuse
All Rights Reserved.
Publication Statement
Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.
Rights Holder
Natasia T. Boyko
Provenance
Received from ProQuest
File Format
application/pdf
Language
English (eng)
Extent
92 pgs
File Size
2.6 MB
Recommended Citation
Boyko, Natasia T., "Ethics in Kakadu (1988): Finding Djilile’s “True Tracks”" (2023). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 2261.
https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/2261
Discipline
Music
Included in
Composition Commons, Indigenous, Indian, and Aboriginal Law Commons, Indigenous Studies Commons, Intellectual Property Law Commons, Musicology Commons