Georgia CURRAN
Fellow at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney
Ph.D., Australian National University in Canberra, Australia
Georgia Curran is a research fellow at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney. She completed her PhD studies in Anthropology at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia (2010) and BA (Hons) in Anthropology at the University of Queensland, Australia (2002). Georgia was previously an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) fellow (2020 – 2023) for a project titled ‘Rethinking the dynamics of place in Warlpiri Performance’ and is currently a University of Sydney Robinson fellow (2024 – 2026) on the project ‘Holding on to Warlpiri Songs: Supporting intergenerational transmission of Indigenous cultural heritage’. She is also a chief investigator on two current Australian Research Council projects titled ‘Reconnecting Warlpiri communities to cultural heritage materials’ (Linkage Project, 2024 - 2027) and ‘The role of song in Warlpiri and Kaytetye biocultural knowledge’ (Discovery Project 2022 – 2025). Georgia is the Chair of the ICTMD Study Group on Music and Dance of Oceania.
Georgia’s research interests focus on Indigenous music and language, performance ethnography, cultural continuity and change and the maintenance and revitalisation of endangered musical traditions. Since 2005, she has undertaken close fieldwork with Indigenous communities in Central Australia, particularly Warlpiri communities in the Tanami Desert region. She collaborates with Warlpiri people and community organisations to produce resources to support intergenerational transmission of song knowledge and practice vital to Warlpiri cultural heritage. With Warlpiri women she has published two song books: Jardiwanpa yawulyu – Warlpiri women’s songs from Yuendumu (2014) and Yurntumu-wardinkgi jujungaliya-kurlangu yawulyu – Warlpiri women’s songs from Yuendumu (2014 & 2017, both with Batchelor Press). She is the author of Sustaining Indigenous Songs (2020, Berghahn) and the co-editor of Vitality and Change in Warlpiri Songs (with Linda Barwick, Valerie Napaljarri Martin, Simon Japangardi Fisher & Nicolas Peterson, 2024 Sydney University Press). Georgia also co-hosts a podcast Music!Dance!Culture! featuring vulnerable musical traditions and including interviews with scholars, practitioners and other people from these musical communities.