Growing up in Sydney, Eric Avery – a violinist, composer, vocalist and dancer of the Ngiyampaa, Yuin, Bundjalung and Gumbaynggirr people of New South Wales – began playing a toy violin at age 12. His mother bought it for him after he was captivated by Wes Craven’s film Music of the Heart, starring Meryl Streep as American violinist Roberta Guaspari, who fought for music education in public schools.

Eric Avery with the Flinders Quartet. Photo © Joshua Scott

He soon learned to play Beethoven’s Ode to Joy on the toy instrument, so his parents purchased an adult violin and then sent him to lessons a year later. They saw the “immense benefits a musical education could give a Black child,” says Avery, as he walks through the park and streets near his Sydney home, chatting esoterically about non-linear time, bush medicines and his musical collaborations.

“You grow, and this instrument grows with you.”

Avery works with his family’s custodial songs and rituals, often singing in Ngiyampaa language and dancing while he performs. One of his formative and ongoing collaborations has been playing violin with his father,...