Nine announced for South Australia’s inaugural Stigwood Fellowship

South Australia’s Minister for the Arts Jack Snelling announced the first five artist and four industry recipients of the inaugural Stigwood Fellowships.

The program, run through Arts SA and the Music Development Office, was launched in mid-June. It is named after Adelaide-born entrepreneur Robert Stigwood who moved to the UK in the ‘50s and went on to manage Cream and the Bee Gees and produce blockbuster movies as Saturday Night Fever and theatrical productions as Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar.

The five artists are singer/rapper TKay Maidza whose debut single Brontosaurus got triple j airplay, Bad//Dreems who earlier this year signed to Ivy League Records, multi-instrumentalist, producer and remixer Luke Godson aka Luke Millions of The Swiss, Skye Lockwood, singer and manager of Echo and the Empress who played the UK’s Glastonbury festival this year, and singer songwriter Jesse Davidson a triple j Unearthed 2012 finalist who created interest with his debut EP Ocean.

Chosen from 30 applications, each received $5,000 to kick-start their fellowship, with additional funds available through the year

Minister Snelling said, “The Stigwood Fellowships are all about taking the best of South Australia’s current music and helping it build national and international markets.” He added that this would be through mentoring artists in areas such as songwriting, production, business skills, marketing and public relations.

The second ‘industry’ strand of the Stigwood Fellowships engages Stu MacQueen of Sydney’s Wonderlick Entertainment to mentor music industry reps who are working in music management or other areas of artist representation.

The recipients in this category are management and booking agency Five Four Entertainment, Pilot Records, band manager Daisy Brown and creative producer and performing arts consultant Jennifer Greer-Holmes.