Kicking off the Adelaide Festival in fine style, Yorta Yorta Dja Dja Wurrung singer, composer and language activist Dr Lou Bennett and the Australian String Quartet return to the Adelaide Town Hall for the Australian premiere of Nyilamum song cycles.

Written by Bennett and Paul Stanhope, it was first performed during last year’s International String Quartet Biennale at the Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam, and subsequently at the Palazzo del Quirinale in Rome.

Bennett and the ASQ last appeared at the 2023 Adelaide Festival for the world premiere of Ngapa William Cooper, and on the strength of that performance, expectations are understandably high.

Nyilamum song cycles at the 2025 Adelaide Festival. Photo © Tony Lewis

Setting the tone for the evening, the concert begins with Bennett’s earlier baiyan woka (singing for Country) and jaara nyilamam, both arranged by Iain Grandage.

It was in the latter song, originally released in 2020, that Bennett first shared the story of a baby girl, whose body was found in a felled tree, having been buried in a djaroon (possum skin cloak). Sent to the State Museum in Melbourne, she was kept in a steel drawer for 99 years until...