Details

Latitude

-4.21421

Longitude

152.173

Start Date

1993-03-17

End Date

1993-03-17

Tape#1: Background and Musical Journey of Anna Kuskus Side A&B: Anna Kuskus was born on 23rd February 1963 to parentage of father from Sulka, East Pomio and Bakowi, Talasea, West New Britain and Tolai mother, Gazelle Peninsula of East New Britain. She attended Kalamanagunan Primary School to Grade 6 and did not continue due to school fees problems as she came from a family of twelve children with family financial hardships. Anna comes from a musical family with her father being a composer of songs in stringbands with guitars and ukelele as well as traditional dance. Her younger brothers Chris and Henry also are musicians producing their own recording albums at CHM Studios. They also all recorded an album Kuskus Family Vol.1 with CHM Studios. Anna learnt her music from her father and accompanying her brothers to the CHM recording studio listening to musicians and how sound engineers arranged music for bands and singers. The styles of music are traditional songs played with modern music using spoken languages like Bakowi, Sulka, Kuanua, Tok Pisin. As a female musician, she was only one of three namely Julie Toliman and Joyce Lavet who made it to record albums in the two Rabaul based studios in CHM and PGS labels. It was a challenge during her time and shares that music were not encouraged much on regular basis for female artists by events or festivals such as Tolai Warwagira. Anna's all time favourite musician is Telek. Although she has not done music performances, the only one she was involved with was a video clip of Barike Band of Rabaul in the sone "Aiye, Aiyo" where she was in the female dancing act. Anna shared her experiences in bringing traditional magical spells using means in Kuanua like "kubak, kabang, kavavar, buai na gugu etc" to modern music to draw crowds and followers of musicians as well as to have protection "babat" from harm from jealous people about their music talents. Anna continues her interest to learn playing the keyboard and become a better herself with more musical skills. (Steven Gagau, July 2019)

Sources