Will Kepa is a Torres Strait Islander multi-instrumentalist, Audio Engineer, Music Producer and Film Composer based in Canberra, ACT, Australia. He has been professionally active in the music industry for over 20 years and has earned a respectable reputation among peers and throughout his working community.

 

Will’s journey began as a music student studying at Tafe in Cairns, which led to him securing a full time ‘gig’ as the resident Bass player at Johno’s Blues Bar in Johno’s Blues Band for approximately 5 years. An unofficial apprenticeship into the music and performing arts industry at a world-renowned music venue that attracted touring acts from interstate and abroad. This exposure was influential to his professional development as a musician and helped to create many collaboration opportunities between other career artists and gained a strong network of musicians and arts workers. Over the years, Will has performed with the likes of Phil Emmanuel, Jan Preston, James Morrison, Peter Cupples, Christine Anu, Seaman Dan, Archie Roach, George Telek, David Bridie, Wilma Reading, David Hudson, Deline Briscoe and Busby Marou to name but a few.

 

His musical skills have taken him to many of the major festivals around the country, such as the Byron Bay Blues and Roots Festival, Woodford Folk Festival, The Dreaming Festival, Port Fairy Folk Festival, The National Folk Festival, The Fairbridge Festival of World and Folk Music, Bellingen Global Carnival, Womadelaide Sounds of the Planet, Mackay Global Groove Carnival, Maldon Folk Festival, Wintermoon Festival and more. He has also had the opportunity to perform with Los Angeles–based and Grammy Award winning Ukulele artist, Daniel Ho, who visited the region to perform at the Cairns Ukulele Festival.   

 

In 2008, Will had been chosen by the Australia Council for the Arts to be a part of their delegation who would attend the Festival of Pacific Arts in American Samoa, presenting his original music and participating in cultural exchange with other nations of the Pacific Island communities who were present. He then travelled with Torres Strait Arts and Cultural group Ariw Poenipan to the East-West Centre at the University of Hawaii (Manoa) presenting Torres Strait Culture to School groups while touring the Island of Oahu and Molokai. Another opportunity saw Will travel as an Assistant Tour Manager of the Badu Island ‘Aibai’ Dancers to the Australasian World Music Expo (AWME) in Melbourne, and on another occasion as the Tour Manager of the ‘Kulkal Baba’ Saibai Island Dancers, also presenting their show at CIAF 2009 and AWME 2010.

 

Will became a member of a folk-twist fusion band called ‘Kamerunga’, a studio project turned touring act, who set out to revive traditional Australiana Folk tunes and were twice nominated for Aria awards in the World Music Category. They performed at many of the major Australian festivals as well as internationally to the ‘Rainforest World Music Festival’ in Sarawak, Borneo, Malaysia. In mid 2012 Will set off on a 6-week/31-show tour with New Caledonian artist ‘Edou’ throughout Germany, Holland, and France. Edou’s music had long been a major influence on Will’s preferred musical taste and so this collaboration became the highlight of his performing career, not only helping to promote the native Kanak music and culture to European audiences, but to also connect with the people of his fathers’ lineage. 

 

Will’s professional career also involves audio engineering, stage and technical production, primarily working for a small AV company for approximately twenty years as front of house (FOH) Sound Engineer, covering local festivals and events throughout the year. These have included the Laura Aboriginal Dance Festival, Wallaby Creek Festival, Yungaburra/Tablelands Folk Festival, Undara Country Rock and Blues, Opera in the Outback, ReggaeTown World Music Festival, Cairns Buskers Festival, Umi Arts - Big Talk One Fire, Zenadth Kes Cultural Festival, Naidoc celebrations and many more events in and around the Far Northern region. Since residing in Canberra ACT, Will began working for lead AV Company ‘Elite Event Technologies’, this gave opportunities to work alongside some of the biggest names in Australian popular music. He has worked as a stagehand and backline coordinator at the Womadelaide Festival on numerous occasions, Festival Melbourne during the 2006 Commonwealth Games, and has been contracted by Arts Queensland and the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair (CIAF) in various capacities. These include Indigenous dance team coordinator, Master of Ceremonies, and general consultancy regarding musical and cultural presentations for their event(s) and liaising with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community groups to realise their cultural protocols. 

 

Apart from the many projects Will is continuously involved in, it’s his life in the recording studio that has kept him busy over the past two decades. Working as a session musician, music director, audio engineer and producer, Will has performed on a countless number of albums, EP’s, Radio, TV and Film compositions as a drummer, percussionist, bassist, guitarist, pianist and backing vocalist, as well as composing and arranging for short films. In 2008, he became the recipient of a skills and development grant from Arts Queensland for an ‘Artist in Residency’ project, recording his solo album of original songs. Since gaining studio competency, Will has produced and co-produced many albums including: Zennith Boyz, Patrick Levi, Cygnet Repu, Seaman Dan and Arts Queensland’s ‘Listen Up’ emerging artists’ compilation CD (part 1) including Dave Dow/The Medics/Gudju Gudju/Moses Warusam, and later the second series with Danny Bani/Cold Water band/Colina and Nick Wymarra/Phoenix Rising/Ivana Gibson. Will has also been involved extensively with an audit of Torres Strait Islander music and dance, a recording and filming project conducted on location spanning over 10 years or more, where CDs/DVDs packages have been produced for almost all the island communities in the Torres Strait region (14 to be exact) as well as 2 projects for the Northern Peninsula Area. These unique projects have also given Will the chance to increase his skills as an audio engineer and producer, under the guidance of ARIA award winning producers and fellow colleagues Dr Karl Neuenfeldt - former Central Queensland University Professor and Nigel Pegrum - owner/operator of Pegasus Studios, Cairns. Continuing on, he recorded and produced music for numerous local artists including Rochelle Watson-Pitt, who was a runner up contestant on Australia’s Got Talent, launching her EP in 2016.

 

Will is the co-director and co-founder of the multicultural group Sounds of AustraNesia. A powerful collection of indigenous voices in choral format, singing original songs interwoven with Indigenous languages and accompanied by traditional instrumentation from Australasia, Melanesia, and Polynesia, producing two Albums since 2013 self-titled the ‘Sounds of AustraNeisa’ and then the ‘Women of AustraNesia’ accompanied by two music books included with scores of the music as well as profiles of each artist featured on the albums. The group has performed for audiences during the Cairns Festival, Cairns Indigenous Art Fair, Cairns City Council shows like the Opening of new venues and cultural precincts, as well as International Women’s Day concerts. They were also invited to perform at a closed event for the Australia Council for the Arts, collaborated with Queensland Music Festival on various projects, previously directed by James Morrison and later Katie Noonan. Some of those performances included collaborations with Christine Anu, the Queensland Symphony and Youth Orchestra and Archie Roach. Recently they delivered a segment during the National Naidoc Awards Ceremony in 2017 (Cairns) and 2018 (Sydney), which went live to air on NITV. The group also wrote and delivered a brand-new stage production titled ‘WOVEN’, which sold out 3 shows in its debut performance in 2019. Will’s involvement was to produce the music that co-director Rubina Kimiia had written for the play and then later becoming FOH Sound Engineer for the show itself at the newly opened Cairns Performing Arts Centre (CPAC).

 

Through it all, Will continued to perform regularly with local cover bands, teaching class room music at Djarragun College (Indigenous School) for 2 years, contracted at various times of the year by Queensland Music Festival to deliver programs to three remote communities in Cape York as part of their Aboriginal Brass Band Projects, operated a recording studio at the local Radio Station on Thursday Island and now resides in Canberra, ACT after studying a Bachelor of Music (Composition for Film and Video Games) on Scholarship at the Australian National University. By early 2021 he was appointed the position of the Manager/Operator of the newly established ‘Yil Lull’ First Nations Recording Studio at the ANU School of Music. This attracted much media attention and can be found easily by searching online. While settling into his role at Yil Lull Studio, Will hopes to also establish himself as a Film Composer, having a few credits to his name already including documentaries and short films such as Carry the Flag (2017), Elements (2018), Blue Water Empire (2019), Dinghy Girls (2019) Strait to the Plate (S1 and S2) and Alick and Albert (2021).