Didgeridoo Players You Should Know (Top Ten)

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This is the first article in a 2-part series on The Didgeridoo Players You Should Know. Click here for Part II.

This list of didgeridoo players is by no means complete but it is an overview of those who have most influenced me and the Didge Project community. Every person on this list has done a great deal to spread the awareness of the didgeridoo and Didge Project would not be what it is without their contributions.

Without further ado we present Didgeridoo Players You Should Know:

1Djalu Gurruwiwi

Custodian of the yirdaki (didgeridoo) amongst the Yolngu people of Northern Australia, Djalu Gurruwiwi is perhaps the best known elder of the didgeridoo world. Djalu and his family are greatly responsible for bridging aboriginal culture with the western world. As didgeridoo maker for the first internationally touring aboriginal band, Yothu-Yindi, interest in Djalu’s instruments grew. With the rise of internet communications, it became well known amongst didgeridoo players that a Djalu-made instrument is one of the finest instruments you can get.

Documentary on Djalu:

Check out Djalu’s official website

2Ondrej Smeykal

A one-man didgeridoo orchestra is perhaps the best way of describing the extraordinary music of Ondrej Smeykal. His highly original style of playing is the result of a life completely devoted to his instrument. For well over two decades and with ever increasing intensity, Ondrej has been developing and redefining his own unique approach to the didgeridoo. Each composition, or song, as he refers to it, is very different in style, ranging from break-beat and organic Didgeridoo techno, to trance, ambient and anything in between.

In the last years Ondrej has shared and taught his contemporary Didgeridoo style and philosophy at festivals all around the world. His tours have brought him regularly out of his homeland of Prague in the Czech Republic to Japan, Australia, Canada, USA, UK, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and Ukraine. Ondrej is known to experiment with materials to make didgeridoos with. He has been noted for his use of glass and metal instruments and has developed a series of crystal didgeridoos, which he created together with traditional Czech glass masters.

This is one of my favorite didge videos ever:

Visit Ondrej Smeykal’s Official Website

3Ganga Giri

 

Australian born Ganga Giri followed a childhood dream of being one of the top didgeridoo players and now tours the world performing as the leader of his own band. Ganga creates a modern sound by mixing indigenous Australian music with funky rhythms and dance beats. Deeply inspired by the sacredness of Australia’s land and how that feeling can be expressed through the didgeridoo, he has become an ambassador for his country, offering a reflection of contemporary multicultural Australia to a world-wide audience.

Visit Ganga Giri’s Official Website

4David Hudson

David Hudson’s life reflects his love and belief in Aboriginal culture and he is widely known as the Cultural Journeyman of Australia. David comes from the Ewamin (oo-rah-min)/Western Yalangi (people of the north east coast of Australia) and has made a career as a didgeridoo player and performing artist. 

David has traveled extensively throughout Australia and the World, including Europe, Asia, Oceania and the USA as both a solo artist and with world renowned dance troupe, “Tjapukai”, which he co-founded with Greek composer Yanni. He promotes awareness of Aboriginal culture and tradition wherever he travels. This video shows David Hudson in many of his public appearances over a long career in the arts:

Visit David Hudson’s Official Website

5Mark Atkins

 

Mark Atkins is an Australian Aboriginal musician known for his skill on the didgeridoo and is also a storyteller, songwriter, composer and painter. He descends from the Yamatji people of Western Australia. He has worked with Robert Plant and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, Hothouse Flowers, Philip Glass, and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, among others. In 2001 he collaborated with Wurundjeri elder Joy Murphy Wandin and composer Philip Glass in the concert work Voices, performed at the Melbourne Town Hall and New York’s Lincoln Center. The composition was commissioned by the City of Melbourne to relaunch the Melbourne Town Hall Organ. This video exemplifies Mark’s storytelling, composition and didgeridoo talents:

Visit Mark Atkins’ Official Website

6Xavier Rudd

 

One of Australia’s most prolific touring artists, Xavier Rudd has built a worldwide following by combining the didgeridoo with his expert guitar and percussion work in a full band setting. Equally talented as a singer and songwriter, Xavier has a number of popular songs in Australia and Canada and he is actively building a catalog of recordings, music videos and festival appearances. Check out his one-man-band action in this spectacular performance (around the 3 minute mark):

Visit Xavier Rudd’s Official Website

7William Thoren

A man of many talents, William Thoren is a didgeridoo performer and craftsman best known for inventing the Multi Drone didgeridoo and pioneering it’s playing technique. This new breed of didgeridoo makes it possible to play an expanded dynamic range and opens up a new world of possibility for didgeridoo players to collaborate with western instruments. William runs wetdidgeridoo.com which includes instructional videos and information about the Multi Drone technique and other advanced contemporary didgeridoo techniques. He tours extensively teaching workshops on didgeridoo and performing both as a solo artist and with the band Gorangutang. William is also a prolific photographer and traveled extensively to develop his “Didgeridoo World” photo gallery at http://www.williamthoren.com/.

This video explains the Multi Drone technique and shows the instrument in action

Visit William Thoren’s Official Site

8Shibaten

A self-proclaimed busker who has a prolific video catalog of performances around the world, Japan’s Shibaten has redefined what it means to be a traveling minstrel. Shibaten has been seen playing djembe, guitar, gongs, bells and many other world instruments simultaneously with the didgeridoo, during his live performances. His music ranges from deep meditative sound baths to high-energy get-the-crowd-dancing music. Watch and see what he’s like when he really gets going:


Visit Shibaten’s Official Website

9Zalem Delarbre

French artist Zalem is one of my favorite didgeridoo players because he is equally talented at playing fast complex rhythms, beat-boxing and playing other unique styles. Zalem began to play the didgeridoo in 2001 and first started with a wobble-based style of playing and progressively developed his own style with his rock and electro-rock influences. He has been a part of many successful collaborations including the band JMPZ (rock/electro/tribal), Wadhom (hang drum, violin and dance), Tribal Dance (acoustic trance from Israel), Vibration Visuelle (a duet with Bertox, magician/juggler), Zalyshar (duet with Yshar, tribal fusion dancer) and Milanga, an electro-ethnic band with sitar, heavy beats, singing and dance. In 2010 Zalem released his first solo didgeridoo album entirely acoustic. His constant research for didgeridoo possibilities led him to a new style which he calls “Didgstep”. This video exemplifies Zalem’s many talents:

Visit Zalem’s Official Website

10Stephen Kent

Didgeridoo veteran Stephen Kent has lived all over the world and became a didgeridoo player when living in Australia and scoring music for Circus Oz. He has since relocated to San Francisco, CA and is very active as a recording artist and performer with over twenty two album credits to his name. Stephen is a member of international touring group Baraka Moon, a mix of Sufi chant, trance grooves, didge and drums.

Visit Stephen Kent’s Official Website

Honorable Mentions

I hope to write more on the many talented didge players who are out there. Until then, here are some more great players worth checking out:

Dubravko Lapaine (Croatia)
Tyler Spencer (Oregon, USA)
Joseph Carringer (New Hampshire, USA)
Jeremy Cloake (New Zealand)
Jeremy Donovan (Australia)
William Barton (Australia)
Chad Butler (Oregon, USA)
Lewis Walker (Australia)
Gauthier (France)
Termite (Russia)
Mack Yidaki (Chile)
Si Mullumby (Wild Marmalade, Australia)
Ash Dargan (Australia)
Ian Hesford (Telesma, Maryland, USA)
Blake Noble (Australia)
Dan Flynn (USA)

Is someone missing from this list? Email us and let us know.

Photos by William Thoren

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AJ Block is the director of Didge Project and is active as a didgeridoo teacher and performer. In addition to didgeridoo, AJ has spent years studying music traditions from all over the world including jazz (trombone and piano), western classical music, Indian Classical Music, guitar and world percussion. AJ has developed a number of programs for Didge Project including The ABCs of Didgeridoo, The Didgeridoo Skills Course, and Circular Breathing Mastery. He is also the author of Didge For Sleep, a didgeridoo learning method designed specifically for people with Sleep Apnea. As a performer AJ is the leader of the Didge Project Music Collective and a member of Dream Seed: A Shamanic Sound Journey. AJ is a founding member of Sacred Arts Research Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of sacred art traditions through education, ritual and study. As a student of spiritual teacher Maestro Manuel Rufino AJ is an active member of the Golden Drum community.

6 COMMENTS

  1. Noticed your list of best didg players known around the World, I believe there is a pioneer missing, Michael Cuming , founder of Visions of a Nomad and ARC Dreaming Aboriginal dance theatre, Michael pioneered the use of the didgeridoo simultaneously played with a variety of instruments and a variety of genres, from Traditional Aboriginal Didgeridoo rythms to Didgeridoo with jazz, Opera, Latin and Fusion music, Michael started his exploration since a young teenager and since the eighties he has been exploring the use of the didg in all its forms and incarnation as seen in his vast catalogue of composed music. Michael was invited by the Indigenous dance group Nunukul Yuggera to play the didgeridoo for their traditional ceremonies at The Cultural Olypiad, and event held as a forerunner to the Olympics, this time held in Greece, he has toured the Globe with Visions of a Nomad and ARC Dreaming

    Here a few videos, enjoy

    Early days in the begin nineties

    Didgeridoo with percussion and bass drums

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ej0leiz398s

    As part of ARC Dreaming -on didg keys and percussion

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p73t-Hjw8gk

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uhUHUM7g7o

    As part of the Cultural Olympiad playing traditional Aboriginal arrangement- Michael also produced this documentary ( 35 min in you will see michael play the didg for one of the ceremony’s)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49FbDCWTCFQ