
Mungangga Garlagula
By Mark Atkins and Erkki Veltheim
Mungangga Garlagula is a collaboration in music, sound and story by legendary musicians and improvisers Mark Atkins and Erkki Veltheim. Audiences are invited to join Mark by the campfire, and to travel with him as he takes us across the border between day and night, dream and reality, the reverberating past and the emerging future.
Together with a company of exceptional Australian musicians who have created a shifting bed of sound for the work, Mark and Erkki lead us into a nocturnal world of memories, echoes, spirits and dreams, conjuring country through words and breath, the snapping of branches and the play of shadows between the listener by the fire and the impenetrable darkness beyond.
Intimate and epic, playful and piercing, Mungangga Garlagula restores the experience of listening with the whole body. It draws us together with new attention on a deeply human journey of disorientation, reorientation and homecoming.

Mark Atkins
Key Creative and Performer
Acknowledged as one of Australia’s finest didjeridu players, Mark Atkins is also recognised internationally for his collaborative projects with some of the world’s leading composers and musicians. A descendant of Western Australia’s Yamitji people, as well as of Irish/Australian heritage, Mark is known not only for his masterly playing, but also as a storyteller, composer, percussionist, visual artist and instrument maker.

Erkki Veltheim
Key Creative and Performer
Erkki Veltheim (b. 1976 Finland) is an Australian composer and performer. His practice spans noise, audiovisual installation, improvisation, notated music, electroacoustic composition, pop arrangements and cross-disciplinary performance.
Creative Team
Ruth Little
Dramaturge
Niklas Pajanti
Lighting Design
Tos Mahoney
Executive Producer
Co-creatives and Immersive Soundbed Performers
Genevieve Lacey
Recorders
Vanessa Tomlinson
Percussion
Stephen Magnusson
Guitar
Anthony Pateras
Piano and analogue synthesizers
Scott Tinkler
Trumpet
Erkki Veltheim
Violin

Project History
A descendent of Western Australia’s Yamatji people, and of Irish/Australian heritage, Mark is a virtuosic didgeridoo player and compelling storyteller. Erkki is a Finnish-Australian multi-disciplinary artist: a storyteller in live and electronic sound, and a remarkable performer on violin and viola.
Members of The Narli Ensemble, Mark Atkins and Erkki Veltheim have been collaborating, creating and performing together over many years through the Tura Kimberley touring program. Mungangga Garlagula is a work that has developed over time and across the country.
In October 2022, a semi staged version of Mungangga Garlagula entitled Nightfalls was presented and filmed as part of Finding Our Voice at the UKARIA Cultural Centre in Adelaide. Watch this program imagined as a gathering around a campfire, featuring poems drawn from Mark's life, stories inspired by the Australian natural and cultural landscape, and tall tales of bushmen, travellers and other colourful characters here.
You can also read Marks interview with the team at Ukaria here.