UTAS graduation a highlight of Naarah Barnes’ journey
Indigenous artist Naarah Barnes has earned many prizes for singing and performing this year, topped off by her graduation from the University of Tasmania with a Bachelor of Music.
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WHEN her parents moved to Tasmania from their Aboriginal community in the Kimberley, their daughter was just a twinkle of hope on their horizon.
Now Naarah Barnes is their dream come true.
The indigenous artist has earned many prizes for singing and performing this year, topped off last week by her graduation from the University of Tasmania with a Bachelor of Music.
The Tasmanian-born performer is the first person in her family to go to university, an achievement made possible by her parents’ decision to move across the continent.
“Mum and dad moved here from a small Aboriginal community in the Kimberley to have children, and then they stayed here for our education,” Barnes, 22, said.
She said her parents were originally attracted to Tasmania because of the renowned work of Hobart fertility specialist Bill Watkins, who treated them so were able to conceive Naarah and then her younger sister Ella.
Barnes, who grew up in Glenorchy, went to Montrose Bay High School and Claremont College.
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As well as her formal education, she also spent a childhood training herself.
“I was always into performing and making shows,” she said.
“I was singing before I was talking, and dancing before I was walking.”
She co-hosted the Glenorchy Carols last weekend, and will co-hosted the Lauderdale carols on Saturday.
While studying her Bachelor of Music degree, Barnes has been teaching music privately and at the Jordan River Learning Federation.
She also went on an education exchange at the University of South Hampton in England, where she starred in Legally Blonde and Alphabet Soup.
Barnes has performed regularly at Mona and featured in the musicals Mary Poppins, Theory of Relativity and We Will Rock You.
This year she won the university’s coveted Ossa Musical Performance Prize and she was recently selected to take part in the university’s indigenous Cultural and Educational Exchange Program and will travel to Arizona and Canada next year for more study.
UTAS GRADUATION SPECIAL: Eight pages of graduates in tomorrow’s Sunday Tasmanian
Originally published as UTAS graduation a highlight of Naarah Barnes’ journey