Australia Council’s latest grants announced – including 46% women

Fifty eight music artists and associations shared in $6.1 million worth of Australia Council for the Arts grants – 46% of them female.

The funding will support 221 projects delivered by 147 individual artists, 25 groups and 49 small-to- medium arts organisations covering music, dance, theatre, literature, emerging & experimental arts, community arts & cultural development, and visual arts.

These covered international tours and projects from Luke Yeoward, Sophia Brous, Alex Lahey, Psycroptic, Jen Cloher and Luke Howard.

Applications for national tours and events went to Jessie Lloyd for the development of Indigenous touring opportunities, Rudely Interrupted to travel to Berlin for the Arts and Disability Festival, Cat Empire frontman Felix Reibl to present his Spinifex Gum project and Ecca Vandal(pictured) to play around the country.

Among associations were the Nexus Multicultural Arts Centre ($78,935), long-running Sydney festival of spontaneous and experimental music The Now Now, the Face The Music conference and showcase in Melbourne ($34,000), Port Fairy Spring Music Festival ($15,630) and the Australian Women’s Festival of Improvised Music ($10,500).

New releases will come from Alon Ilsar, Tara Tiba, Brendan Maclean, Lucian Blomkamp, Gareth Liddiard’s TFS, Lisa Salvo / On Diamond, Angus Campbell, Seekae and Laurence Pike.

The recipients in all categories showed a greater amount of diversity and inclusiveness than before.

According to the Australia Council, first timers made up 35% of applications and 20% of successful recipients.

19% of recipients were based in remote and regional Australia.

Of the 101 peers used to assess the June round, 31% were based in regional and remote areas, 22% identified as culturally and linguistically diverse, 21% identified as First Nations, and 7% identified as people with disability.

Australia Council CEO Tony Grybowski was also pleased with the rise in the numbers of requests for funding for ambitious projects incorporating the use of emerging technologies as computer programming, 3D scanning, and Virtual and augmented reality.

These included an experimental lab run by NSW virtual reality artist Josh Harle for a group of artists to explore the possibilities of emerging techniques, and a touring operatic performance and sound installation by Queensland’s Eve Klein using audio and video feeds taken from inside the body of a singer.

“Since the new grants model opened in early 2015 we have received nearly 10,000 applications and we’re seeing an increasingly diverse range of artists creating and presenting art in new and innovative ways,” Grybowski said.

“We’re excited to be able to empower artists to push boundaries and deliver compelling works.”

A full list of the grants outcomes can be found at. https://online.australiacouncil.gov.au/ords/GrantsList.

The closing date for the next grants round is October 3.