The Little Riverina Band is continuing to go from strength to strength. We sat down for a chat with the trio’s father Danny Cohen, to discuss the band’s progression from a pre Covid group to performing during Covid outside residents’ and patients’ windows to a well-crafted group now nominated for a Murrumbidgee Health Volunteer Award.
Father Danny said, “We were shocked. Last year, they performed at the ceremonies as a feature act because, I know since 2019, they have been going into aged care homes, singing and playing during the school holidays and Christmas break, and that’s nearly five or six years. And last year, they were invited by the Murrumbidgee Local Health District as a feature act to perform two songs at their award ceremony and that was a real buzz and they asked us because we’ve been to the MPS’s. We don’t have an MPS in Cootamundra, but we go to Junee and Gundagai, Harden and Henty.
“So this year, instead of being invited for a feature, as a feature act, we’re actually up for an award. Even being nominated for the award is just amazing. The children who consist of two primary schoolers in Benjamin and Daniel and then teenager Esther, are phenomenal musicians in their own right before they join forces. Daniel attributes their success to trying different things as the children grew up and fostering their love of music. We’re both teachers, not music teachers. We’re not musicians and our parents on either side are not musicians. But when we decided to have children, we would make music a part of their lives. So when they turned five, we put them onto the piano.
“Esther started first, but Esther has cerebral palsy on her left side, and so she struggled with the piano. That’s why she went to the bass guitar, she can manage that and the boys, they started piano at the age of five. When Benjamin started, he was five and then after a year his brother started, and we took them into the aged care home. Southern Cross was the first one for Christmas carols. And then they started just singing and playing pretty basic Christmas carols. This was in 2019 just before Covid broke out.
“And then, if you remember the history of COVID, we weren’t locked down in the January because they had the school holidays, so they did the Christmas in 2019 and then the school holidays in January. And then the lockdowns came in March, then the lockdowns opened up soon after Easter and the guys like Commando musicians, went back into the aged care homes, performed again and then after that, we had the lockdowns, then they were literally standing outside the windows.
“They’re standing outside the windows. The residents are on the inside and they’re singing through the glass and playing. We were the only ones doing it.”
“We were literally the only entertainment they had other than CDs. This was during the COVID period, so that ran for nearly two years.
“And that brought us up to the modern period. They all started out with just playing, it’s as simple as performing in front of the audience at the aged care homes, and it developed from that. Then each one developed their own musical skill and talent. Daniel is the youngest, he’s the lead singer and plays guitar, even though he does play piano, but he plays guitar. Benjamin does backup on keys and drums and they’re amazing musicians, just in their own right, they’re amazing musicians and Esther does vocal backup and plays bass guitar.
“They also play in the Cootamundra Town Band. They have a disciplined band, which means they have to follow sheet music, you’ve got to follow the band and the orchestra. So they have that. But we also play for the Cootamundra Country Music Club, and that’s wild and it goes for about four hours and there’s no sheet music, they’re just listening to what the people are singing and they’re looking at the old dudes and they’re following along the chord progressions and just completely by ear and you don’t know what you’re going to get on the day.
“They have that environment with the Cootamundra Country Music Club, and then they have the Town Band. They do all their lessons, their piano, guitar, and vocal lessons out of the Young Regional Conservatorium.
“They go to Tamworth and they compete, they compete at the Eisteddfods in Cowra and Wagga.
“Esther is 15, so she is in high school, Benjamin (12) is in grade six this year, and Daniel (10) is in grade five. It won’t be long until the winner is announced.
“It’ll be on the day, on Friday, 13th of June.
“As a teacher, it’s about potential. I’m going to talk in sort of philosophical pedagogy terms. The human population produces amazing sportsmen, musicians, artists, writers, thinkers, mathematicians, and societies, functioning societies and functioning families, they sift, they filter through what they have got in their society, and you should be looking for these things. Now, with our kids, we tried them at sport, running, swimming, cross country, you name it. We tried them on art. We tried them on computers, computer programming.
“They are good students. I mean, they get A’s and B’s. They’re good students. But they’re not runners or mathematicians or artists. They’re just musicians. We had no idea. Just no idea.
“And philosophically, if the education system and parents did better at trying their kids out on multiple things, I mean, these guys could have been champion runners, who knows?
“You just have to look for the potential in the kids. The youngest one, Daniel, is an amazing singer. He’s like 1% of the population that can sing at a sort of professional level. He’s that good. When he goes to Tamworth, he’s in the top three in the competitions and he’s at a young age.
“Just recently, we took him to the Eisteddfod at Cowra and he took out 14 and 16 year olds in the country music category, just from singing and playing the guitar. He’s 10. That’s unusual. He’s like a freak.
“He’s like one of those mathematicians or artists.
“The other two are just great musicians, and that’s just how they naturally are. They’re not runners, they’re not swimmers, they’re not artists, they’re not mathematicians, we tried them on computing, they couldn’t do the editing and trying to rework their thing, but you put an instrument in their hand, they just know. Daniel sings pitch perfect. Win or lose, it’s a great honour.
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