Dunera Mass returns to Hay after 84 years

Dunera Mass project director, Dr Nicole Forsyth (centre) visited Hay last week to meet up with Dunera Museum president David Houston, local chorister, Mayor Carol Oataway who is assisting with the program and (back) Hay tourism team members Ali McLean and Liz Moorhouse. Liz is also a gifted local singer and was encouraged by Dr Forsyth to join the choir on September 7.

Image: The Riverine Grazier/Tertia Butcher.

By Tertia Butcher

A Dunera Mass, part-written in Hay more than 80 years ago, is returning for a site-specific performance at Hay War Memorial Hall.

The dramatized concert will be performed in Hay during the annual Dunera Commemorative day on Saturday, September 7 and is supported by the Dunera Association, Hay Shire Council and Creative Australia.

The concert will involve the community where some of Max-Peter Meyer's music was written while he spent part of 1940-41 in the internment camp at Hay.

It has both a professional musical element, and a community based choral element.

“We already have some choristers from Hay and Deniliquin involved, but would love to let more people know about this across the Riverina, if they would like to participate in a show about local history,” project director, Dr Nicole Forsyth said.

Dunera Mass was performed as a sold-out show at the Canberra International Music Festival in May last year.

It told the story of the HMT Dunera refugees, using the recently re-discovered original music manuscripts of Dunera composer, Max-Peter Meyer, with projections of art works created by fellow Dunera Boys Klaus Friedeberger and Robert Hoffman, on the voyage and in the camp, to illuminate the story.

Dr Forsyth said Dunera Mass provided a rare and welcome opportunity to hear music rescued fortuitously from the debris of war.

Meyer devoted his energies aboard The Dunera to writing music and organising performances, believing that music and art would relieve the oppressiveness of the internees’ circumstances and revive a sense of home – even if in the interim that would be an internment camp at Hay or Tatura.

Dunera boy, Ossie Wolkenstein kept the musical scores and in 2002 passed them on to Nicole’s father, music education academic, Dr James Forsyth.

Dunera Mass will perform at 12.30pm as part of the Dunera Association’s 84th anniversary commemoration.

Tickets at the door or from https://events.humanitix.com/the-dunera-mass