The Man from Snowy River: Arena Spectacular (original soundtrack) The Man from Snowy River: Arena Spectacular (original soundtrack) All poetry narrated in the musical was written by Banjo Paterson, including ""Waltzing Matilda"" (for which the music was written by M. Cowan). Bruce Rowland, who composed the instrumental music for both the 1982 film The Man from Snowy River film and its sequel 1988 film The Man from Snowy River II (American title: "Return to Snowy River"), composed special arrangements of some of his music for the musical. Rowland was the musical arranger who also conducted the orchestra for the musical. Lee Kernaghan and Garth Porter wrote the music and
And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda a Remembrance Day parade in Canberra and the song was the result of that event. The song was written in the space of two weeks. Interviewed in 2009 for "The Scotsman", he said: I wrote it as an oblique comment on the Vietnam War which was in full swing… but while boys from Australia were dying there, people had hardly any idea where Vietnam was. Gallipoli was a lot closer to the Australian ethos – every schoolkid knew the story, so I set the song there. ... At first the Returned Service League and all these people didn't accept it