About the Festival of Underground Music

Performing a series of groundbreaking and inspiring acoustic concerts within Darwin’s WW2 Oil Storage tunnels – a space of incredible resonance and acoustic qualities.

Tunnel Number Five brings together professional independent musicians from across Australia to the Northern Territory

• to build collaborative opportunities for Territory musicians
• to exchange knowledge and skills;
• provoke the creation of new music in new combinations of artists;
• further explore the tunnels resonant potential;
• grow the project’s reach to local and national audiences;
• expose a new form of musical conversation and new ways of collaborating;
• nurture an annual gathering of world wide unplugged music lovers in the Territory.

Musical journalist Anna Dowd on the 2016 last concerts:

“Walking out of the small dark entrance in the side of the hill, I wanted immediately to go back in and experience it all again, if only to confirm it hadn’t been some gloriously atmospheric, sonically charged dream. 172 underground meters of WWII tunnel makes for a jaw dropping concert hall – like being inside a giant ear canal with waves of sound washing over you from all directions. The voices of the yidaki and yolngu songmen playing with the cello and shakuhachi are still singing through my imagination. A reverent, hyper sensory and utterly unique experience”. ANNA DOWD

Support Staff

Anisha Angelroth – Project Manager: Darwin

Anisha is a project developer working in the arts since her London College days of the early 90’s. With a particular interest in Community Arts and Festivals she has worked with Cultural Organisations in Europe, Asia and Australia. Born in India and adopted to European parents, she travelled the world from an early age. A citizen of the globe, Anisha is interested in cultural collaborations in any medium.

David Matthews – Audio documentation, Webmaster, & photo documentation : Melbourne

David is a location sound recordist with 40 years of recording performance, spoken word & soundscapes. Throughout the 80’s, David produced and presented on public Radio in Perth & Melbourne. David’s location recordings of breathing rock on the coast of Arnhem Land was a highlight of the 2015 Underground performances, amplified by the resonance of the tunnel to sound like the audience was inside the lair of a sleeping dragon. http://www.altsoundings.com

Carmen Chapple – Graphic design

Carmen moved from her hometown in country South Australia first to London, where she undertook her great Australian rite of passage as a nanny, and then to Sydney where she tried her hand at finance, contributing to the global economic crisis of 2009. On her return from a three-year visa overstay in Brazil, Carmen moved to Katherine in the Northern Territory where she began experimenting in graphic design for Djilpin Arts. Carmen now lives in Darwin and grabs a few moments for studying graphic design while her 1 year old daughter is taking morning and afternoon naps.

Eve Pawlik – Project assistant

Eve worked her cheerful magic in the role of artist liaison and support for our visiting singers from Arnhem land. Following tertiary studies in Melbourne in visual arts, anthropology and geography, Eve took up work with Artback NT. She now calls Darwin home and regularly travels to remote communities to work with performance artists. She is passionate about indigenous arts and Tunnel Number Five are delighted to have her on team.

For facebook users … “Tunnel Number Five” facebook page