Australis

The coronavirus pandemic has really shown music’s ability to bring us together and provide comfort in difficult times: whether it’s through singing on balconies during lockdown to entertain our neighbours, professional musicians performing online to bolster spirits, or providing the soundtrack to keep us moving at home.When ABC Classic asked listeners to recommend the music that gives them an instant mood boost, the response was almost overwhelming, with hundreds of different suggestions.

Nankyoku Monogatari is a 1983 Japanese film directed by Koreyoshi Kurahara and starring Ken Takakura. Its plot centers on the 1958 ill-fated Japanese scientific expedition to the South Pole, its dramatic rescue from the impossible weather conditions on the return journey, the relationship between the scientists and their loyal and hard-working Karafuto Dogs, particularly the lead dogs Taro and Jiro, and fates of the 15 dogs left behind to fend for themselves.

Born in New Zealand in 1958, noted performer and composer Sarah Hopkins moved to Sydney in 1964 to study music at the Sydney Conservatorium. She eventually received a composition degree from the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne. After her graduation she emerged as one of the most interesting new age/classical hybrids from Australia because of her unique arranging ideas and her incorporation of a wide variety of traditional, ethnic, and newly invented instruments.