Christopher Sainsbury
Christopher Sainsbury (born 1963) is an Australian Indigenous composer, performer and teacher. He is currently an Associate Professor at the ANU School of Music, Canberra, where he lectures in composition, songwriting, and contemporary Australian Indigenous music. Sainsbury is the founder and current artistic director of the program. Early life and education. Sainsbury was born on the Central Coast, New South Wales in 1963 and is a descendant of the Dharug people. In his early years, Sainsbury was involved in various regional and community musical groups during the 1960s and 1970s which have become important influences in his work . Sainsbury attended the Northern Rivers College of Advanced Education (now the Southern Cross University) where he was awarded the College Medal in 1986. He began teaching music at the Eora College in 1990 where he was the Head of Arts and Media until 2015. Since then, Sainsbury has been teaching at the ANU School of Music. Career. Sainsbury has made significant contributions to elevating Australian First Nations voices and representation in music, through including his own Dharug heritage in his works and engaging with Aboriginal community events. He also writes about Australian Indigenous representation and misappropriation in the cultural arena . The most significant of his contributions is the establishment of (initially known as the Indigenous Composer Initiative) in 2016. In 2020, he was awarded the APRA Art Music Inaugural National Luminary Award in recognition of his work with Ngarra-Burria; an award he says is also ""a recognition that the program is built on the back of my 35 years work as a composer and 30 years work in Indigenous music education."" Music. Sainsbury writes music for many different ensembles and in varying styles. He describes himself as ""a regionalist composer"" as a way to acknowledge his regional upbringing as  his most important influence on his music. He cites composers James Penberthy, Steve Swallow and Hans Werner Henze as influences in his music, as well as genres including jazz and surf music. He has written for many different instrumentations ranging from solo to orchestral pieces, some of which has been described as ""orchestral surf music.""