ABC North Coast, 28 August 2022:
For some, the only sound they associate with Lismore on February 28, 2022, is the relentless artillery of rain on roofs.
It's the gurgle of brown, muddy water as it swallows homes and the crash of appliances in the Wilsons River washing machine.
It's the calls for help from roof cavities and the sputtering of tinnies coming to the rescue.
For Lismore composer and multi-instrumentalist Tilly Jones, the sound of the flood is something expressed best through an orchestra.
Ms Jones has written a musical piece named Resounding, inspired by the destruction she witnessed on that late summer day and the desecration of Lismore's Northern Rivers Conservatorium.
She was encouraged by her uncle Christopher Latham who directs a project called the Flowers of Peace, which measures the cultural cost of war through music and painting.
"I don't think I'll fully ever be able to process it," she says.
Flood victims still waiting
Some Northern Rivers families are living in limbo, crammed into makeshift accommodation or in caravans on the street, waiting for answers.
"But it did in a way help me to process a bit of the loss of the community, particularly with the conservatorium.
"I was helping there on the first day after the flood when we threw out hundreds and hundreds of instruments including some of my own."
Ms Jones says the first half of the piece tells of the flood, the second half is a tribute to everyone involved in cleaning up the aftermath.
"I think it's a really big challenge to translate something of that magnitude into music," she says.
"[But I wanted] to write a piece to give to my community."
Ms Jones says Resounding is a way of dealing with the trauma of the flood.(ABC North Coast: Leah White)
Ms Jones says the end goal is bringing the region's musicians together — with their newly donated instruments — to perform the piece in the renovated conservatorium building.
Hundreds of instruments lost to flood
Anita Bellman stands in the gutted first floor of the Northern Rivers Conservatorium in the Lismore CBD.
She explains that the night before the record-breaking flood, conservatorium staff and members moved everything to the first floor, where it had been out of harm's way during the 2017 flood.
Their efforts, they soon realised — like those of so many others — were ultimately in vain as they watched Wilsons River rise beyond all predicted heights to 14.4 metres on February 28.
The historic and freshly renovated building was destroyed along with hundreds of instruments.
"It looked like a giant had picked the building up and just given it a bit of a shake," Ms Bellman says.
"We probably lost, in total, well over 150 instruments.
"Any instrument you can think of, we lost."
More than 150 instruments were damaged during the disaster.(Supplied: Northern Rivers Conservatorium)
Resounding gives the gift of music
When Rachel Hocking arrived at the conservatorium in Lismore, she was driving a van filled with hundreds of donated instruments.
A pianist and music teacher, Dr Hocking also founded the Resound program which distributes donated instruments to victims of natural disasters.
The initiative started after the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires…..
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