Ron Murray

Consultant and Learning & Development Specialist (Indigenous Awareness)

Ron is a descendent of the Wamba Wamba tribe (Swan Hill, Victoria) and the Tatiara tribe (Bordertown, South Australia). His totems are wiran, the red tail black cockatoo on his father's side and richierook, the willy wagtail on his mother's side.

Growing up in redgum forest country in the traditional lands of the Muthi Muthi people, Balranald NSW, Ron was lucky to grow up with his culture, with his mother, father and five sisters at a time when many Indigenous children were being removed from their family as part of the Stolen Generations policy.

Spending his childhood living in the bush on a 240,000 acre sheep and cattle station, with the mighty Murrumbidgee River as his back garden and surrounded by Aboriginal sacred country and sacred sites, Ron is passionate about his heritage, the environment, and about keeping Aboriginal art and culture alive.

For the past 15 years Ron has worked for Indigenous communities in a variety of roles, always pressing for social justice, and trying to educate the wider non Indigenous community at the same time. He was Aboriginal Advisor to Victoria Police for five years till 2000, and worked for the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service between 1992-95 as client service officer, and then Deputy Manager.

Ron is currently Indigenous trainer for Diversity@Work and conducts Aboriginal cultural awareness workshops across a variety of community, government, education (primary, secondary and tertiary levels) and corporate sectors. He has a national reputation as a speaker, and regularly gives presentations and lectures on Indigenous issues in the areas of employment, history, the environment, justice, cultural heritage, arts practice and the positive contributions of Indigenous people to Australian society.

Ron is also kept busy with his solo career as an accomplished didgeridoo musician. "I have had the opportunity to do two orchestral pieces - a Philip Glass piece and a Peter Sculthorpe piece - in the Melbourne Town Hall" then in New York and in Jordon. He once played for Queen Elizabeth II and world boxing champion, Muhammad Ali. (Country Style Magazine 2006).

His career highlights include: In May 2001, Ron performed in the world premiere of American composer Philip Glass' Voices for Didgeridoo, Organ and Narrator, with Mark Atkin, Calvin Bowman and Joy Murphy-Wandin and at its US premiere at the Lincoln Center Festival, New York. In April 2005, Ron performed as soloist with the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Orchestra in the Melbourne premiere of Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe's Requiem Mass. In June 2006, he performed with Voices in Amman, Jordan as part of the Second World Congress for Middle Eastern Studies.

This year, Ron has performed on top of the MCG scoreboard for ‘Dreamtime at the G', the AFL's annual football round commemorating Indigenous players. He recently appeared on Channel 7's celebrity singing show ‘It Takes Two' playing didgeridoo to Ernie Dingo's performance of the Goanna Band song ‘Solid Rock'.

As well as a soloist, Ron regularly performs as part of the duo Kinja, with partner Sarah James (fiddle player and vocalist). Kinja translates in the Wamba Wamba language as "my home". The Kinja sound is an ethereal blend of Indigenous Australian and Celtic inspired moods. Sarah and Ron feel that Kinja's music unites their heritage. "People tend to be touched by hearing two musical cultures coming together and it seems to move people on that level ... If we do Danny Boy we often find people feel homesick, and that makes them think more about what it is to be Australian and about belonging in this country." (Country Style Magazine, October 2006)

Although based in central Victoria, a fair part of Kinja's year is spent travelling and performing at folk and arts festivals, and in Aboriginal communities. Kinja's debut album My Home was released in 2004 through Black Market Music. Ron and Sarah feel proud that My Home celebrates Ron's Wamba Wamba heritage, a tribute to the survival of Victorian Aboriginal culture. Also for Ron and Sarah, the album subtly ponders the question that "if cultures can come together in music, surely we can do it as people? In some ways it's our contribution to reconciliation." (Country Style Magazine, October 2006)

As an artist, Ron is a well regarded wood sculptor. From a young age, Ron developed a love for wood. He learned to make returning boomerangs from redgum tree roots the way his grandfather, John Jack Murray taught him. His passion for wood has stayed with him ever since, and certainly he is always happiest with a piece of redgum, mallee or box in his hands.

As a wood sculptor, Ron specialises in sculpting snakes, coolamons and shields and is widely regarded as a maker of fine mallee didgeridoos and redgum boomerangs. Following in the footsteps of his ancestors, Ron incorporates traditional Victorian Aboriginal line etching in his work.

Ron has exhibited in the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards in Canberra (1997) and has made art pieces for high profile clients such as world boxing champion Muhammad Ali; US composer Philip Glass; Indigenous Australian Athlete, Cathy Freeman; British supermodel Naomi Campbell; members of the Harlem Dance Company, US soul band Junglefunk and the AFL (Australian Football League).

Ron's philosophy is that he prefers to keep his work at the top of the range, by custom making and creating only a limited number of personal orders each year. He prefers to establish a relationship with the buyer and encourages the personal choice of the design that he then etches onto the art piece. Ron's etchings focus on the totems important to Victorian Aboriginal river tribes which include the long neck turtle, platypus, brown snake, goanna, and the Murray cod.

Ron takes great pride in the preparation, and preservation of each piece of timber. To ensure the finished piece lasts forever, he cures the timber using the traditional method of soaking the wood in the river. To harden the piece, Ron uses a sacred boomerang stone. For preservation, Ron uses the techniques of oiling, French polishing or lacquering.

As well as creating his own artwork, Ron passes on his knowledge to Indigenous young people by teaching wood sculpture as part of the ‘cultural healing' program he delivers at Melbourne and Malmsbury Youth Justice Centres.