Cellist and rapper set off on a dramatic journey

Omar Musa and Mariel Roberts Musa perform at the Asphalt Festival, Düsseldorf Germany. Photo: Ralf Puder

Omar and his bride dramatically set to sea

By Len Power

The multi-award-winning Australian author, poet and rapper Omar Musa and the internationally renowned American cellist and composer Mariel Roberts Musa are bringing a dramatic seafaring monologue to the stage in Queanbeyan.

In The Offering, a protagonist from a country torn apart by ecological collapse and climate change travels across a plastic ocean towards a mythical volcano where he seeks destruction by self-immolation, but instead finds revelation and a vision of a world without borders.

The music, poetry and theatre performance is rooted in the tradition of oral histories and explores themes of environmental damage, belonging and boundlessness, using Omar’s family history in southeast Asia as inspiration. The show combines storytelling, poetry, hip-hop and live music with sound recordings made in the forests and ocean off the island of Borneo in the Malay Archipelago.

After performances in Munich and Düsseldorf, Germany, Omar is clearly excited to be returning to Australia to present this show with Mariel, whom he recently married. They made it together over the last year in Borneo and the US and can’t wait to show it to his home audience in Queanbeyan, which he wickedly and delightfully calls the Paris of the Palerang, the Venice of Eden Monaro!

Mariel Roberts Musa. Photo: Ralf Puder

The show will be seen at the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s The Neilson, Pier 2-3, Walsh Bay in Sydney on August 2, the Four Winds pavilion, Bermagui on August 4 and then at the B, Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre, on August 8.

Musa has published three books of poetry, a novel, four hip-hop albums and the acclaimed one-man play Since Ali Died. Musa’s work of poetry and woodcuts, Killernova, won the Special Book Award at the ACT Notable Book Awards, was longlisted for the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal and received an honourable mention for ACT Book of The Year.

His debut novel, Here Come the Dogs, won the People’s Choice Award at the ACT Book of Year Awards, was longlisted for the Dublin International Literary Award and the Miles Franklin Award, and Musa was named one of the Sydney Morning Herald’s Young Novelists of the Year.

He won the People’s Choice Award at the ACT Book of Year Awards and was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Award for New Writing and the South Australian Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction.

Cellist, Mariel Roberts Musa, is not only known for her musical virtuosity. Her artistic work combines avant-garde, contemporary, classical, improvised and traditional music, and her performances are bursting with “unbearable intensity” (says Toronto’s influential The Whole Note magazine).

Roberts has performed as a soloist and chamber musician on four continents, most notably as a member and co-leader of the Wet Ink Ensemble (recognised by the New York Times as Best Classical Ensemble of 2018), as well as with the International Contemporary Ensemble, Mivos Quartet, Bang on a Can All Stars and Ensemble Signal. Roberts has released three solo albums of her own material.

Canberra / Queanbeyan performance: “The Offering”, at The B, Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre August 8.

First published at Canberra City News, July 22, 2024