Performer publishes personal songbook

A LONG-TIME musician and writer has compiled decades’ worth of original compositions in a new collection, which was launched over the weekend.

At 93 years old, Geoffrey D’Ombrain released Geoffrey’s Song Book on Sunday afternoon, featuring 271 personal works charting his musical journey.

He said he is excited to see the book released to the public after about 20 years of work.

“I’ve been writing songs for the last 80 years or more,” he said.

“It came to the point where I thought I want to put all my songs, which are more like folk songs, into the one book.

“They tell a lifetime’s story in many ways, and cover all sorts of topics. There are lots to do with the environment, Indigenous people; there’s almost a song for every occasion.”

D’Ombrain has been a music educator for more than 50 years, lecturing at Melbourne University in the mid-1960s and serving as head of music at Melbourne State College from 1974 to 1982.

Inspired by composers like John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen, he has also been commissioned for films such as Lost in the Bush and The Man Who Loves Frogs, and has written nearly 70 pieces for musical theatre productions in both Australia and the United States.

Having lived in the region since his move to Dereel in 2001, he has performed at various markets and has previously led choirs for Ballarat U3A.

D’Ombrain said a key goal behind the work was to make his pieces easily accessible for readers and amateur musicians.

“I already had lots of the songs published in other things but I wanted them in a format where it’s just the chords, harmony and melody,” he said.

“That way, people can easily play them. Some of them, I have to put the accompaniment in because they’re so complicated, but most of them, people can get their instruments out and just play them quite easily.”

D’Ombrain has also been working to digitise about 500 of his original works, which he plans to submit to national libraries after almost a year of archiving. “I’ve still got quite a bit of work to be done but I’m hoping to do it before I die,” he laughed.