Meet Your Australians - 2025 NT Australian of the Year Grant Ngulmiya Nundhirribala. ACM is proud to be media partner for the 2025 Australian of the Year Awards.
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00:00I always listened to my father singing about the land, the water, the sea, the bird, the
00:09smoking ceremony.
00:11And I was listening, listening, listening when I was five years old.
00:16I started music with the iraki, didgeridoo, and clapping stick.
00:21I started to play instrument, keyboard, playing bass, rhythm, and I tried to put all the traditional
00:29song into my western music.
00:33My father said, hold me up.
00:35What kind of a style that?
00:37This is my style.
00:38You love my style.
00:40Can I do it with the traditional song?
00:43That's your dream.
00:44Go for it.
00:46I'm taking my music around the world and taking all my group when every big festival like
00:55that, I always take them.
00:58I went to Budapest festival, went to Europe, different places there.
01:06I got two band.
01:07This is my only band with me, Tony, and my boy, ourself.
01:13And I got big group called Yilila, Yilila band.
01:17I like to record and performing with other musician.
01:23My favorite instrument is Indian tabla.
01:27I like to play with the tabla with my traditional song.
01:31Some young generation interesting traditional song, ceremony, but some nothing.
01:40I'm trying to push them in my community to be strong.
01:46That's how we put our music, traditional song, we put it on video so they can listen and
01:56thinking about how they're going to do their future.
02:01I got 12 years old grandson.
02:04He always ask me, Amri mean granddad in their language.
02:08Amri, what you do when you go overseas or you do your music like that?
02:15And I tell my grandson, everything you never see, you can see there.
02:20And he said to me, one day I'll be follow you and I'll be play this for you in the concert
02:27in stage with you.
02:30I like to pass it over to the generation.
02:34If you concentrate traveling or music or whatever, what you want, just put it here.