Mourning the Great Barrier Reef

Deputy Editor Kayleigh Greig reviews a heart-breaking performance by Anohni and the Johnsons.

All images from @anohni, Instagram, 27th of May, 2025

Haunting vocals, visions of a dying underwater world and soulful instrumentals are what enveloped me on the night of the 26th of May, 2025. As part of Vivid Sydney, avant-garde singer-songwriter and visual artist Anohni performed ‘Mourning the Great Barrier Reef,’ to an orchestral accompaniment at the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall. Covering songs from throughout her career, the British-born New York-er brought together her life’s work to draw attention to a tragedy occurring in Australia: the degradation of one of the seven wonders of the natural world – The Great Barrier Reef.

As we found our seats before the stage, the screen lit up with visuals of aquamarine water looking upwards towards a rippling surface. The footage, produced in collaboration with Australian filmmaker Lynette Wallworth, blurred into images of desolate coral as Anohni took the mic.

“Rise for the ocean, rise for the sea, rise for the coral, rise for humanity,” her voice floated out like a current over the crowd, casting us under her spell. Mournful violin and cello underscored her call to action; the stage cast in blue.

With the arrival of her second song, ‘Why am I Alive Now?’, the images brightened, focusing on a school of black and yellow fish. “I don’t want to be witness, seeing all of this duress,” her lyrics begged as the pianist, guitarists and drummers chimed in, creating an island-style feel with the appearance of bongos.

My personal favourite of the night, ‘4 DEGREES’ saw the music build to the rumble of the bass drum and the blaring of brass. “I wanna burn the sky. I wanna burn the breeze. I wanna see the animals die in the trees. It’s only 4 degrees,” Anohni sang, her voice rising poignantly.

Soon, the music fell silent and Anohni humbly stood aside as an interview played on screen, not just sharing her own voice but championing the words of others. “First there was a complete denial and then there was a false hope – a hope that scientists can save the reefs […] but there is really no way to save the reef by science. There is no time,” came the first interviewee’s sobering reality check.

Throughout the night, several interviews were integrated into the pauses between songs, explaining the symbiotic relationship between coral, the animal that provides shelter, and algae, the protist that provides food to the coral via photosynthesis. When temperatures rise, the algae detach from the coral, causing it to starve, bleach and eventually die.  

“We’re not going to save thousands of reefs around the world with technology, not unless we cut to the heart of the issue, and that’s CO2 emissions,” Professor Maria Byrne of Sydney University declared, receiving a chorus of whoops from the crowd – a community of like-minded environmentalists come together to share their loss.

The emotion was never higher than when Professor Anthony William D. Larkum, age 85, choked upon the word “grief” as he looked back on what a lifetime of marine biology had amounted to. Punctuated by further testimonies from Professor Peter Harrison of Southern Cross University, Associate Professor Katerina Petrou of the University of Technology Sydney and Dr. Anne Hoggett and husband Dr. Lyle Vail of the Australian Museum’s Lizard Island Research Station, the spoken word aspect painted a grim picture for the future of the reef and all its inhabitants.

Among them, we were introduced to a shy, colour-changing cuttlefish, a graceful turtle snapping at meagre morsels, and a vibrant, rippling flatworm whose cuteness had me enraptured. But their home was nowhere near as colourful – rather, images of bone-white structures trailed by: a funeral procession.

Anohni’s music rose and fell throughout like cresting and crashing waves, including her Oscar-nominated ‘Manta Ray,’ a song so gentle and yet so sharp with sadness that it bleeds the spirit. A born performer, Anohni knew exactly when to stand aside to give spotlight for a saxophone solo, when to lie on stage, curl up in pain or rise and stretch her hands upwards, face tilted to the heavens. 

The music faded into silence and the audience leapt into an immediate standing ovation, whistling and cheering, only to be treated to a finale as Anohni reappeared in a sparkling back veil, completing the night’s symbolism as an elegy for the reef. She took her place at the grand piano, and as the music reached a deafening crescendo, the singer let out what I can only describe as a cry of the soul. Truly, Anohni and the Johnsons earned the second standing ovation as the screen faded to black.

My partner, a music and sound designer, described the performance as “probably the best concert [he had] ever seen” and I, a studying biologist and conservationist, was deeply touched by the ecological breakdown depicted.

To anyone with an interest in the environment, art, activism or music, we cannot recommend Anohni’s music highly enough. Every word aches with truth, and to hear her lyrics live is where they are brought to life.

And to the Great Barrier Reef: We are sorry, and we will miss you dearly.