OUR STAFF
Wantok Musik Foundation is a tiny but mighty organisation, doing big things with amazing people.
Artistic Director
Dr David Bridie
Dr David Bridie is Artistic Director at Wantok Musik Foundation, as well as being one of Australia’s most prolific and innovative contemporary musicians. David rose to prominence in 1983 as a uniquely Australian pianist, vocalist and songwriter in the critically acclaimed band Not Drowning, Waving. In 1990 the band released their ground-breaking album, Tabaran which was recorded in Papua New Guinea with local musicians including George Telek MBE and Pius Wasi. A decade and nine albums later, David formed My Friend the Chocolate Cake. The band won two ARIA Music Awards for Best Adult Contemporary albums for Brood and Good Luck, and in 2008 won the prestigious Herald Angel's award at the Edinburgh Festival. Not one to be categorised, David has firmly established himself over the last thirty years as a producer, cultural theatre director and composer; having scored the soundtracks for over 100 international and Australian films, television series and documentaries, including Marni (2020), Secret City (2015 - 2018), Wolves (2015), Satellite Boy (2012), Bran Nue Dae (2009), Putuparri and the Rainmakers (2015), and The Straits (2012). David is the founder of the Wantok Musik Foundation and has produced albums for many artists such as Archie Roach, Christine Anu, Frank Yamma, Emily Wurramara and George Telek. In 2016 he was commissioned by the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) to create a Bit na Ta, an audio/visual installation that shares 100 years of history of the Gazelle Peninsula, PNG, through the eyes of those that inhabit the province. The artwork was created in collaboration with Gideon Kakabin, George Telek and K. Verell, and has since exhibited at the Melbourne Museum, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts and the PNG National Museum and Art Gallery. In 2019, David was awarded the prestigious Australia Council Don Banks award, in recognition of his sustained contribution to the arts and music industries of Australia. With his depth of musical experience, mentorship and resolute determination to support the careers of First Nations and Pasifika musicians, David continues to make an invaluable cultural contribution to the local, First Nations and Pasifika musical landscape.
General Manager
Mihka Chee
Mihka Chee is a Māori (Waikato-Maniapoto), Chinese and Pākehā woman from Aotearoa. She is a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and vocalist, learning violin and piano from the age of 3 and joining her first punk rock band as a guitarist at 13. A nerd to the core, Mihka achieved the highest mark in New Zealand for music performance as a high school subject. At university, Mihka supported fellow Māori and Pacific Island students in the arts and tutored te reo Māori language, and was awarded the university's highest cultural honour. As the guitarist and co-songwriter of pop rock band Ivy Lies, the group recorded an album in Los Angeles at Bob Clearmountain's studio, with hit singles featuring prominently on pop music charts and support slots for international touring artists. With professional experience working alongside Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia, Mihka joined Wantok Musik Foundation as their General Manager in 2025 and continues to write and perform as a solo artist with members of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
OUR BOARD
Paulo Almeida
Bio coming soon
Adrian Basso
Adrian Basso has been a key player in the Australian music industry for over 20 years. He has served on the Wantok board for 2 years. Adrian was general manager at PBS 106.7FM for over 15 years. During Basso’s tenure, the station grew into a nationally and internationally respected music institution that has survived many challenges, including the Global Financial Crisis and the Covid pandemic, to emerge bigger and stronger than ever before. He was President of the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia (CBAA) for six years during which he fronted the national campaign that successfully lobbied the federal government for adequate funding for community radio stations to broadcast on the digital radio platform. Basso holds degrees in accounting and in music. He has been passionately involved in community radio for more than 20 years, having worked previously at classical music station 3MBS.
Chryss Carr
Chryss Carr is a music management and promotions professional. She has served on the Wantok board for 6 years. From trial by fire at Mushroom Records as a teenager to her trailblazing work with breakthrough First Nations musicians in the new century, she has helped turn landmark Australian artists into household names for more than 30 years. Chryss founded AUM in Darwin in 1999, after 17 years working in the top echelons of international promotions. With Mushroom, Virgin and EMI she worked on major campaigns for David Bowie, Lenny Kravitz, Massive Attack, Culture Club and Madness. Six years as International Director of Marketing for the South Sea Pearl Consortium honed her PR skills at the luxury end of the global marketplace of Vogue and Valentino. With AUM she prioritised cultural engagement, social responsibility and unique homegrown talent with a roster of voices — Gurrumul, Dan Sultan, Benny Walker, Gawurra, Baker Boy — who would spearhead a new wave of distinguished First Nations success stories. She helped put the Darwin Festival and the National Indigenous Music Awards on the national media map, and remains a highly respected advocate for the self-determined expression of First Nations artists.
Amy Chapman
Bio coming soon
Sajiv De Silva
Sajiv has close to 20 years of experience in the government sector, both state and federal. He has held many finance related roles in budget, governance, audit and policy working at Treasury, Health, Audit Office and Prime Minister and Cabinet. He is currently a Senior Executive in NSW Government as a Chief Risk Officer and Chief Audit Executive. Growing up in Western Sydney, he is passionate about learning and embracing different cultures and an advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion.
Steven Gagau
Steven Gagau is a cultural researcher and community collaborator with the University of Sydney, where he works at the digital archive, PARADISEC (Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures). He focuses on archival and curatorial metadata enrichments on Melanesian Pacific collections through connections and collaborations with community outreach projects incorporating indigenous and cultural perspectives and traditional knowledge. He is a co-producer of the Toksave Podcast series and cultural researcher on the collaborative project ‘True Echoes’ with the British Library for reconnecting indigenous communities with historic audio records of sung and spoken cultures of Oceania. Steven also partners with the Chau Chak Wing Museum exhibitions, as co-curator of Pacific Views which brings to life the historic landscape images, voices, songs and poetry of Pacific peoples connecting the past to contemporary perspectives on history and culture and the Sydney Environment Institute as the Pacific community collaborator and research support to Pacific Renewables research project on unsettling resources to transition to renewable energy in the Pacific. Steven’s cultural heritage is Tolai of Gunantuna people of New Britain Island in Papua New Guinea, a diaspora community leader for PNG, Melanesia and Pasifika communities in Sydney NSW, member of Pacific Cultural Collection Advisory Panel of the Australian Museum and associated with various voluntary and not-for-profit organisations and professional associations.
Patrick Mau
Patrick Mau is a hip-hop artist (Mau Power) and music business entrepreneur. He joined the Wantok board in 2023. Hailing from the cultural centrepoint of the Torres Strait Islands, with proud heritage from the Dhoebaw Clan of the Guda Maluilgal nations, he works to use his music to share the story of his people to audiences all over the world. He has enjoyed significant success over his career, including performing as the Australian delegate at Festival Of Pacific Arts in Guam and at the 2018 Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony. Patrick created and runs a record and distribution label, film production and media company called OBHI (One Blood Hidden Image) Entertainment Group. The company brings people together for music experiences to remember through live performance, creates opportunity and possibility for young people and reinvests a substantial portion of profits back into meaningful community programs in music, film, creative arts and live production.
Tanya McLaine
Tanya is an Arts Manager who has spent the last fifteen years working across Arts organisations in Naarm and is currently working with Local Government to strengthen the arts sector in the south-east of Melbourne. She joined the Wantok Board in 2023 and has worked on various projects including Maubere Timor (Timor Leste), We Have Come To Testify (West Papua) and Hamoris Lian Timor. As a multi-disciplinary producer, operations and events manager, she is skilled in logistics and project management, and provides leadership and guidance with a passion for creating culture, access, equity and sustainability with purpose and integrity. Tanya is the founder of ‘Sona Productions’, whose mission is to develop and implement strategic visions and plans for artists, touring locally and internationally, creating sustainable income, and providing platforms for under-represented creators to showcase their work. Sona works extensively with First Nations musicians and artists from across the Asia Pacific, Latin America, Europe and Africa, across multiple genres and styles of music. In 2023, she presented artists at the G20 Summit for the Ministry of Culture in Varanasi, India. Working primarily across the lands and waterways of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nations in Naarm, but extending across all Traditional lands here and abroad.
Peter Seidel
Peter Siedel is a lawyer with the firm Arnold Bloch Leibler. He has served on the Wantok board for 10 years. Peter joined Arnold Bloch Leibler as a lawyer in 1993 and became a partner in 2002. Prior to joining the firm, Peter completed a three-year position at the Federal Court of Australia as the Associate to the then Acting Chief Justice of the Federal Court, Justice Charles Sweeney. Peter is entered on the High Court Register of Practitioners and is entitled to practice as a barrister and solicitor of both the Federal Court and Supreme Court of Victoria. Notably, Peter represented the Yorta Yorta Aboriginal peoples in their landmark native title claim, High Court appeal and associated legal transactions. For many years now Peter has been highlighted as one of Australia’s leading lawyers by prominent international legal guides Chambers Asia Pacific, The Legal 500 Asia Pacific and Best Lawyers International in the area of native title and traditional owner rights, for his deep commitment to empowering traditional owners. Complementing this, Peter has been similarly recognised by Chambers Asia Pacific in the area of charities for his wealth of experience working for the not-for-profit sector on a range of matters including constitutional, governance and contractual issues. In 2020, Peter was awarded Lawyers Weekly ‘Pro Bono Partner of the Year’. Peter is also a previous recipient of the prestigious Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission’s Human Rights Award in the Law Category, in recognition of his significant contribution to the promotion and advancement of human rights in Australia. Amongst other important Indigenous bodies Peter represents, he acts as a trusted adviser to Yamatji Marlpa Aboriginal Corporation, Anindilyakwa Land Council, Yorta Yorta Nation Aboriginal Corporation, First Australians Capital, Eastern Maar Aboriginal Corporation, Lowitja Institute and Ramahyuck District Aboriginal Corporation.
Dr Lachlan Strahan
Dr Lachlan Strahan is the former Australian High Commissioner to Solomon Islands (2020-2023). He joined the Wantok board in 2023. He worked at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade for 30 years, serving overseas in Germany, South Korea, India (as Deputy High Commissioner), Geneva (as UN Ambassador) and Solomon Islands. In Canberra, he served in a number of senior roles in DFAT and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. Between 2015-2018, he led DFAT’s UN, human rights, Commonwealth, conflict prevention and gender equality teams and played a key leadership role in Australia’s successful campaign to win election for the first time to the UN Human Rights Council (for the 2018-2020 term). Lachlan was a senior advocate for DFAT's Indigenous Employees Network. He has published three books, Australia’s China: changing perceptions from the 1930s to the 1990s, Day of Reckoning, which was shortlisted for the 2006 New South Wales Premier’s Australian History Prize, and Justice in Kelly Country, which was shortlisted for 2023 Prime Minister’s Australian history prize. Presently he is working on a fourth book.