Gender imbalance, marriage equality addressed at Art Music Awards

Almost half the winners at last night’s Art Music Awards were women – a point that was highlighted throughout the night, in addition to the role of art music’s addressing the gender imbalance.

Saxophone player and composer Sandy Evans, one of the presenters, said she looked forward to seeing where gender diversity sits in the future.

Among stand-out performers in the contemporary art music, contemporary jazz and experimental music at the City Recital Hall in Sydney was Andrea Keller who collected the Award for Excellence in Jazz.

This year alone, the pianist also picked up an APRA Professional Development Award and the Merlyn Myer Composing Women’s Commission.

Melbourne composer Liza Lim took two trophies. The Instrumental Work of the Year was for How Forests Think, a 35-minute reflection on the work of anthropologist Eduardo Kohn who writes about forest ecologies as the ’living thought’ of human and non-human selves.

Lim’s second win, for Vocal / Choral Work of the Year, was for Tree of Codes, an opera based upon Jonathan Safran Foer’s 2010 novel of the same title which itself is based on The Street of Crocodiles, a collection of short stories by the pre-war Polish author Bruno Schulz.

Composer Lyle Chan talked of marriage equality. His Orchestral Work winning composition Serenade for Tenor, Saxophone and Orchestra (My Dear Benjamin) was based on letters written between the great English composer Benjamin Britten and his first love, a young German man named Wulff Scherchen.

The gong for Distinguished Services to Australian music, as decided by the APRA board, went to John Pochée OAM for his influential and visionary work as a jazz drummer and bandleader since 1956.

Pochée, who turns 77 next month, revealed he’d been ill for some time, and was told by doctors he might not be well enough to attend his accolade. “I wasn’t having that!” he said.

The awards were produced by APRA AMCOS and Australian Music Centre. The event was hosted by Simon Marnie, with musical performances curated by Gabriella Smart.

The awards also paid tribute to those who passed on since the last event. They were Patrick Thomas, Tomasz Spiewak, Robert Allworth, Dr Allan Zavod OAM, Richard Divall AO OBE, Richard Toop, Irene Hendricks, Janet Seidel, Graham Wood and James Wade.

Other winners of the night were:

Performance of the year: Peter de Jager, Piano Sonata

Jazz Work of the Year: Tom O’Halloran, Now Noise

Award for Excellence by an Organisation: Speak Percussion for their 2016 program and sustained contribution to Australian music

Award for Excellence by an Individual: Daryl Buckley for over thirty years of contribution to the international projection of Australian contemporary performance, ideas and practice

Award for Excellence in Music Education: Moorambilla Voices for their 2016 season

Award for Excellence in a Regional Area: Tura New Music for their 2016 Regional Program

Award for Excellence in Experimental Music: Clocked Out with Bruce & Jocelyn Wolfe for The Piano Mill Project

2017 ART MUSIC AWARDS – STATE and TERRITORY AWARDS

ACT Award for Instrumental Work of the Year: The 7 Great Inventions Of The Modern Industrial Age by Sally Greenaway

NSW Award for Excellence in Music Education: Sydney Improvised Music Association (SIMA) for Young Women’s Jazz Workshop program

NT Award for Excellence in a Regional Area Ngarukuruwala for Ngiya Awungarra (I Am Here, Now)

QLD Award for Excellence by an Individual: Vanessa Tomlinson for conceiving and curating the 2016 Australian Percussion Gathering

SA Award for Performance of the Year: Adelaide Chamber Singers for Agnus Dei (Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep) by Paul Stanhope

TAS Award for Excellence by an Organisation: Mona for Mofo 2016

VIC Award for Performance of the Year: Chamber Made Opera for Permission To Speak by Kate Neal

WA Award for Jazz Work Of The Year: Help You Along Your Way by Daniel Susnjar