Howie hits his straps
by
Charlotte Knottenbelt
2004
is shaping up to be a good year for Howie Sumner. Not only has the UniSA
graduate started a new job teaching at Kaurna Plains Aboriginal School, but
he's also landed a gig at Womad.
Howie, who graduated from UniSA with a Bachelor of Education (Primary and Junior Primary) in 2000 has long dreamed of balancing a career in education with his passion for music – it was just a matter of finding the time.
He found it last year, when, working full time but craving a creative outlet, Howie decided to record some of the songs he'd been working on over the years. The result was his debut CD, Time and Situation, which has received favourable coverage on ABC radio, and impressed the organisers of Womad enough that they offered him a spot on the much-coveted world music festival program.
Howie first started playing guitar and singing as a teenager, and spent much of his 20s playing gospel music in church. Nowadays it's mostly him and his guitar, playing an original blend of blues, folk and gospel-influenced music inspired by different times and situations in his experience as a Ngarrindgeri man growing up in Adelaide's northern suburbs.
He wants his music to send a message of hope and optimism to both white and black Australia. "There are way too many wedges driven in between indigenous and white Australia," he says. "When someone lectures at university about Aboriginal people they're usually focussing on misgivings about history instead of how we can change things. Of course we should acknowledge the past – my own mother was part of the stolen generation – but this is 2004 and we need to be thinking about how black and white people can create a better future together."
You can catch Howie Sumner playing at Womad in Botanic Park on Sunday March 7 at 4.45pm. His debut CD, Time and Situation, is available at Tandanya and Big Star Records. If you want to be in the running to win the CD, send an email with your phone number and address to thegraduate@unisa.edu.au marked attention: Howie Sumner CD.