Winners were announced across 11 national and seven State categories at this year’s Art Music Awards held for the first time in Melbourne at the Plaza Ballroom on Tuesday 26th August.
Hosted by APRA AMCOS and the Australian Music Centre, the Art Music Awards celebrate the achievement and creative success of composers, performers and educators in the genres of contemporary art music, jazz and experimental music. This year’s diverse list of winners features some of Australia’s finest artists.
In the jazz sector
Alister Spence and Myra Melford combined their talents on an international collaboration for an improvisational piece on two grand pianos, Everything Here Is Possible, and were recognised as winners of the Award forExcellence in Jazz.
Paul Grabowsky with his work Tall Tales, was awarded in Work of the Year: Jazz category. Tall Tales is a journey through three different types of musical language, the first inspired by the Yolngu people of Northern Australia.
The Australian Art Orchestra won the Award for Excellence by an Organisation, with their achievements in 2013, including diverse programs, cross-cultural collaborations and community engagement.
Other non jazz award winners include the following
Performance of the Year category was awarded to the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, for Brett Dean’s The Last Days of Socrates. This complex 55-minute piece was conducted by Simone Young with soloist Peter Coleman-Wright and featured large choirs, impressive percussive elements and offstage musicians and singers.
Dr Catherine Crock’ssupport of Australian composers to create new works for her recording project The Hush Collection, Volumes 1-13 has seen her take out the Award for Excellence by an Individual.
Cathy Aggetthas won this year’s Award forExcellence in Music Education for new Australian art songs for low voice, a project resulting in 21 new works performed in concert at the XIX National ASME Conference in September 2013.
The recipient of the Award for Excellence in Experimental Music was Perth composer Cat Hope, curator of the Drawn From Sound exhibition, showcasing Australian contemporary graphic notation practice as objects, videos, photographs, drawings, paintings, interactive programs and machines.
James Ledger received the Work of the Year: Orchestral Awardfor his violin concerto Golden Years, commissioned by the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. Golden Years won the judges over with its inventive structure, instrumental colours and Ledger’s impressive writing for orchestra as well as solo violin.
The award for Work of the Year: Vocal/Choral was presented to Andrew Ford for Last Words, a work which utilises last poems and death bed utterances by writers and historical figures to create a beautiful and moving piece. Mary Finsterer received the Work of the Year: Instrumental for her large-scale piece Aerea, which was acclaimed by the judges as being ambitious and highly engaging.
Music educator and Australian conductor Richard Gill was honoured for his highly respected work as the 2014 recipient of the Distinguished Services to Australian Music Award. The award recognises his long and varied career spanning over 50 years.
The Award for Excellence in a Regional Area has gone to Goulburn Regional Conservatorium for The Goulburn Oratorio, a multi-layered composition by Stephen Leek incorporating the work of local poets, and involving a large choir and orchestra.
The Queensland State Award was awarded to Camerata of St John’s, with Natalie Weir and Expressions Dance Company for When Time Stops, music by Iain Grandage, in the Performance of the Yearcategory. The West Australian State Award went to Tura New Music for their outstanding 2013 programin the categoryof Excellence by an Organisation.
Judith Clingan AMhas won the ACT State Award in the category Excellence by an Individual for “So Good A Thing” Festival, which celebrated 50 years of music making in Canberra, while the New South Wales State Award went to Kim Waldock from Sydney Symphony Orchestra in the category Excellence in Music Education.
Arts Centre Melbourne received the Victorian State Award for composer development project5x5x5 in the Excellence by an Organisation category, with the South Australian State Award being taken out by Jason Sweeney for Stereopublic: Crowdsourcing the Quiet in the category of Excellence in Experimental Music. And the Tasmanian State Award was given to Michael Kieran Harvey for his performance of Elliott Gyger’s solo piano work Inferno in the Performance of the Year category.
