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You wouldn’t think that a linguist and a stockman would have much in common, but Rosie Sitorus and Peter Salmon have built a beautiful friendship on a shared love of Country, language and music.
And their special bond – and songs – touched the hearts of The Piano mentors Guy Sebastian and Andrea Lam, who have chosen Rosie, 37, and Peter, 92, to go through to the concert finale of the ABC series’ second season.
STARSTRUCK
“I don’t think Peter quite realised what was happening,” Rosie laughs. “He’s like, ‘I don’t watch TV out in the bush.’ And I was like, ‘This is going to be a big deal, Boss!’
“I was like starstruck,” Rosie adds. It’s a real privilege to be able to be mentored and to hear that they loved our music and for them to help us bring it to life. It was such an honour”.
Rosie and Peter met almost a decade ago via a program she was working on to preserve his language. He’s an Elder and the last speaker of the critically endangered Thiinma language of WA’s Upper Gascoyne region.
“Peter came to me and said, ‘I’ve got a job for you.’ And if an old person comes to me with a job, whether it’s writing a song or making a cup of tea, I say, ‘Yes sir, let’s do it!’
“And so when Peter said, ‘I want you to have a go at putting these words into a song,’ I was like, ‘Alright, I suppose I can give it a go!’ It worked pretty well.”
And the pair are thrilled that they’re spreading their mission to more people on The Piano.
“He watched it with the family and they were all getting a bit misty-eyed,” says Rosie of Peter and his relatives, including his grandchildren, who he has been teaching his language to so they can hopefully pass it down to the next generation.
Now, Peter and Rosie are already working on their next song inspired by the family who has gone before.
“It’ll be a song about my old grandfather, never been on an aeroplane in his whole life,” Peter says. “But he taught me a lot about the bush.”
“That was a bit surreal again,” says Rosie of the pair’s first performance on The Piano at Sydney Airport. “You know,
we were playing in such a big airport, and Peter said afterwards, ‘Oh, my old grandfather,’ who taught him the language, ‘He never even got on a plane.’”
COMMON GROUND
Rosie believes it’s a sign of the times that The Piano is resonating so well with viewers.
“I was talking to a lady yesterday in town and she said, ‘I saw the show, it’s one of those shows that I watch when I want to be reminded of how beautiful the world is.’
“And I think that’s so true. There’s so much terrible stuff and it’s so easy to see it and find it, and The Piano just reminds you that everyone is connected in some way.
“We’ve all got things in common. It doesn’t matter how different we are. Look at Peter and I, you could not get two more different people. And yet we’ve come together over culture and music… It’s a beautiful reminder of how special people are.”
The Piano is on Sunday 7.30pm, ABC
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