Barry McDonald
Barry McDonald, collected some of the Australian tunes in this archive.
Barry recorded a number of folklore performances and oral history interviews between 1981 and 1989 that form the (Barry) McDonald Collection, housed in the National Library of Australia in Canberra. The interviews were recorded throughout the New England region.
Barry McDonald (b. 1955) grew up in Sydney and moved to Armidale in 1976. He studied history at the University of New England and acquired a strong interest in local history, oral history and folklore. He lived next door to Professor Russel Ward, who had pioneered the collecting of folklore and bush ballads in Australia. In the 1980s he was a schoolteacher in Armidale and later in Queanbeyan. He was a keen musician, playing the violin in the Armidale Folk Club and other groups. He got to know the collectors Chris Sullivan and Mark Rummery and this led him in 1983 to undertake a large number of recordings of folk music and oral history in the New England region. In more recent years he has written a number of academic papers on traditional Australian music.
