Singing The News in Early Colonial Australia

Singing the News in Early Colonial Australia revives a centuries-old tradition of singing ballads as a form of news transmission. Associate Professor Una McIlvenna and PhD Candidate Madeline Sargeant will trace the journey of news ballads from European streets and marketplaces to the colonies’ streets, theatres, and newspapers.

Moving beyond the traditional narrative of the ballad as belonging to the bush, Singing the News reveals that songs were legitimate news media. But unlike other sources of news, the ballad is distinct in its ability to rouse the emotions of the listener through music. Using the technique of contrafactum – new songs set to old tunes – ballads are endowed with layers of meaning. Stories of real people, events, and places in the early colony will be performed, providing a unique opportunity both to encounter these underappreciated sources of historical knowledge and to even sing along.

Featured Singers include
David Pearson

Facilitators

Una McIlvenna is Australian Research Council Future Fellow and Associate Professor in English at the Australian National University, where she researches the tradition of singing the news. She has published in Past & Present, Renaissance Studies, Media History, and Huntington Library Quarterly. Her recent book, Singing the News of Death: Execution Ballads in Europe 1500-1900, won the 2023 Katharine Briggs Award from the UK Folklore Society. 

Madeline Sargeant is a PhD candidate in English at the Australian National University. In 2025, she was awarded a doctoral position on Dr Una McIlvenna’s ARC-funded Future Fellowship project, Singing the News: Ballads as News Media in Europe and Australia, 1550–1920. The title of her thesis is ‘The History of Ballads as News Media in Australia’. 

Street Two | Unreserved | 90 Minutes
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