‘Singing our stories’: a conversation with Toby Whaleboat and Philip Matthias

Philip Matthias, Director of Music at St Patrick’s Cathedral, has a clear memory of the day he met Toby Whaleboat in 2009. Philip was the conductor of the University of Newcastle Chamber Choir, which had just won the national Battle of the Choirs competition, and Toby asked Philip if he could join the choir. There was no space at that time for another choir member, and the repertoire of the choir was mainly focused on music grounded in the European choral tradition. But what was striking and memorable to Philip from that first encounter was Toby’s personal warmth and wide smile.

Toby returned a few months later and asked if Philip could find him a room at the university where he could hold regular rehearsals for a First Nations choir. This was the beginning of a relationship that would enrich both their lives and open the vibrant cultural world of the Torres Strait Islands (TSI) to Philip and his family.

The First Nations Choir went from strength to strength, and Philip, initially feeling very out of his depth in rehearsals with Toby, began to move with more confidence in the aural and oral world of this style of music-making and choral singing.

Philip invited Toby to teach some TSI songs to the University of Newcastle Chamber Choir, also writing out parts in formal notation and making audio recordings of the songs. These were sent to TSI elders in Townsville to make sure that the music was faithful to the singing of the people there. A further connection was created with Toby’s uncle, Anglican minister, Elder, musician and culture-keeper Fr Elimo Tapim, who knew hundreds of TSI hymns and all their harmony parts from memory.

Singing is identity for the people of TSI ... Singing, dancing, faith, culture and family—it’s an intergenerational experience and forms the fabric of the community.

Philip’s experience has been that TSI people share their culture with arms wide open. When he visited St Stephen’s Anglican Church in Townsville in 2014 and attended the 11am Mass, where Elimo was the pastor, he found that there was no formal choir. The community gathered at Mass was the choir, and everybody sang in harmony.

‘Singing is identity for the people of TSI,’ Philip observes. ‘There’s Mass in the morning on a Sunday, which goes for around an hour and a half, then there’s a shared lunch, where the singing continues. Then there’s more singing! Singing, dancing, faith, culture and family—it’s an intergenerational experience and forms the fabric of the community.’

The relationship with Toby, Elimo and their extended family is now so strong that the middle names of Philip’s three children with his wife Bernadette pay tribute to these beloved friends: William Beimop, Thomas Elimo and Sophie Renah.

Toby explains that the songs that he and Philip collect in the Meriam Mir language on Murray Island in TSI help to teach the language and culture to young people, especially those who have moved away and now live in mainland Australia.

The dancing and songs reflect the natural environment of the island—the animals, the trees, the reef and the water—as well as belief systems brought by Christian missionaries in 1871. This arrival of Christianity is celebrated each year on TSI on 1 July and is called ‘the Coming of the Light’.

Now a senior land service officer for Aboriginal communities in the Hunter Region in New South Wales, Toby comes from a long line of song-makers and community leaders in the Torres Strait. Songlines have always been part of the memory and culture of his people.

Jonah and the whale, Jesus calming the storm. These stories hold meaning for people of the sea. Story, song and dance is captivating, and the people themselves created their songs, based on these stories.

‘My dad and uncles were composers in Meriam Mir language, and my grandmother wrote a song in English in the 1920s called ‘I Am Free, Free, Free’, he says. She lived to see the referendum of 1967, ‘a huge moment in history’, but passed away in 1975, Toby explains.

‘That generation all had a very hard life, working demanding physical jobs like building railways or in the cane fields, and not many were able to go to high school,’ he says. ‘My dad was the youngest of seven children, and he was the only one [to go to high school]. He wrote songs of hope and was a minister in the Pentecostal church. This gave him great standing in the community. Many other family members were also ministers.

‘When missionaries translated the Bible into Meriam Mir,’ Toby says, ‘they focused first on the books that mentioned stories of the sea: Jonah and the whale, Jesus calming the storm. These stories hold meaning for people of the sea. Story, song and dance is captivating, and the people themselves created their songs, based on these stories.’

Both Toby and Philip agree that the sacred music of TSI needs documenting and recording, and this task will continue. Philip was surprised and delighted to find music already existing on TSI for the full cycle of each liturgical year. Most TSI communities are Christian, with many belonging to the Anglican Church.

Toby continues the tradition of telling the ongoing story of his family and faith in song. His new compositions use more contemporary language, and a playlist is gradually being compiled. Bernadette Matthias sang Toby’s song ‘Ege Jesu (Peace, Be Still)’ in the This Land concert at St Patrick’s Cathedral in 2022. Philip took a recording of Bernadette’s rendition of the song to Toby’s 82-year-old ‘Uncle E’, who was astonished and proud that Toby could write songs like that in language.

Philip recalls being greatly influenced by the words of Church of Scotland minister, hymn writer and musician John Bell in the foreword to the book What Would Jesus Sing? Experimentation and Tradition in Church Music. Bell says that lifegiving connection is created and sustained when people are able to recognise soul and sensitivity across cultures through music.

What we are doing is telling each other our stories: you tell me your story, and I’ll tell you mine. We sing our stories. This is the way we move forward together.

Philip thinks secular music is ahead in finding a more uniquely Australian musical ‘voice’ but observes that sacred music is now opening more to the gifts in song of the people of this land. He believes that this is directly related to knowing, respecting and celebrating First Nations people and their culture. It has been a source of joy for him that the community and musicians at St Patrick’s Cathedral are also open to this spiritual, musical and cultural journey.

Philip is grateful that Toby came back after that first meeting and invited him to be part of something unexpected—something that has changed both of their lives.

‘I remember Raymond Kelly, a linguist and chair of the New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council, saying to me that what we are doing is telling each other our stories: you tell me your story, and I’ll tell you mine. We sing our stories. This is the way we move forward together,’ Philip says.