It’s a long distance and a far cry from his ancestral country, Kalkadoon, in the Mount Isa region of Queensland, but Sydney’s Paddington has a different kind of resonance for Kalkadunga man William Barton. It’s here that the composer and multi-instrumentalist, best known for his virtuoso didgeridoo playing, began what he calls “a significant chapter” in his musical life, with the late, great Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe, who was an early champion of Barton, composing work for the young prodigy.
On the muggy late-January afternoon that I meet Barton, we walk down Holdsworth Street towards the Georgian cottage where Sculthorpe lived, as he enumerates his many connections with the area. A short walk away is Peggy Glanville-Hicks Composers’ House, named for the Australian composer, where Barton undertook a live-in residency with his partner and longtime collaborator, violinist and vocalist Véronique Serret, during Sydney’s Covid lockdowns. It was here that he started work on Of the Earth, commissioned by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra for the reopening of the refurbished Sydney Opera House Concert Hall in 2022.
