Deborah Cheetham Fraillon: ‘Composer by necessity, soprano by diligence and lesbian by practice’

‘My Aboriginal mother, Monica, was a singer. Her mother, Francis, was a renowned singer in Cummeragunja before the walk-off’ … and Deborah Cheetham Fraillon’s uncle was the legendary Jimmy Little. Photograph: Eugene Hyland/The Guardian

“I thought, it’s time to distil,” Deborah Cheetham Fraillon says when we meet in the inner-Melbourne suburb of Albert Park on a gloriously sunny Friday morning, her ruffian cavoodle Charlie sniffing expectantly at our feet. “What are the necessary things, the essential things that define me?”

She’s referring to her bio, which, given her achievements over a 40-year period – as a renowned soprano, then a playwright and now an internationally recognised composer – takes some work. “What I came up with was: Yorta Yorta by birth, Stolen Generation by government policy, composer by necessity, soprano by diligence and lesbian by practice.”