Deborah Cheetham Fraillon AO is a soprano and composer whose extensive CV includes Artistic Director of Short Black Opera and Dhungala Children's Choir, First Nations Creative Chair at Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and Chair of Vocal Studies at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Deborah describes herself as a “21st century urban woman who is Yorta Yorta by birth, stolen generation by government policy, soprano by diligence, composer by necessity and lesbian by practice.” 

Her career began with the autobiographical one-woman stage play White Baptist ABBA Fan, and followed with Australia's first Indigenous opera, Pecan Summer, which Deborah wrote after she reconnected with the family she had been stolen from, and with Yorta Yorta Country. 

Deborah's towering 2018 composition Eumeralla, a war requiem for peace commemorates the Eumeralla Wars of the late 19th century fought between Gunditjmara people and colonists in South Western Victoria. Eumeralla, a war requiem for peace was translated from the Latin Christian requiem mass into Gunditjmara dialects by senior language custodian Vicki Couzens and linguist Travers Eira, and is sung entirely in Gunditjmara by Indigenous and non-Indigenous choirs and soloists.

There are many moments that have changed Deborah's life, including when she first saw Joan Sutherland perform - but 2023 stands out as both the year she married her wife Nicolette Fraillon, and the year that Australia voted against an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

Deborah is speaking at All About Women at the Sydney Opera House, Sunday March 8.

Guest: Deborah Cheetham Fraillon AO

In the live broadcast of this episode, Eumeralla movement IV was played: Kooyeen-wanoong (Liber scriptus), performed by Jess Hitchcock and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Benjamin Northey. Released on ABC Classic.