Composer Kate Neal and percussionist Matthias Schack-Arnott have won large at this year’s awards.

Composer Kate Neal has taken out the Beleura Award for Composition at the Melbourne Prize for Music 2016. The Beleura Award is a new category with a purse of $25,000. Neal won the section with her composition for dancers and musicians Semaphore, competing against finalists Chris Dench, Mary Finsterer, Andrea Keller and Anthony Pateras.

^{Composer Kate Neal, photo © Andrew Wuttke}

Percussionist Matthias Schack-Arnott took out the Development Award – for an early career musician or group, 30 years of age and under, who demonstrate outstanding musical talent and the potential to develop their professional career – beating out Sophia Exiner, Rory Burnside, Gabriella Cohen and Tilman Robinson. The prize consists of $10,000 cash and a $6,000 Yamaha Music Australia Grant.

^{Percussionist Matthias Schack-Arnott}

Indigenous songwriter and activist Kutcha Edwards won the main event, the Melbourne Prize for Music 2016. Edwards has received the $60,000 prize – awarded to a Victorian musician or group whose work has made an outstanding contribution to Australian music and has enriched cultural and public life – as well as the Distinguished Musicians Fellowship. The Fellowship, open to finalists across the four main categories, will provide Edwards with a commercial engagement with the Victorian College of the Arts and Melbourne Conservatorium of Music to the value of $20,000. Finalists for the Melbourne Prize for Music included composer Liza Lim, songwriter and bandleader Joe Camilleri and modern Australian rock icon Adalita Srsen.

Trumpeter and improviser Scott Tinkler won the Outstanding Musicians Award – $30,000 plus a $2,500 Qantas voucher – from a pool of finalists that included Kate Miller-Heidke, Lior Attar, James Hullick and PLEXUS.

The Melbourne Prize Finalist Exhibition is held in the Atrium at Federation Square, Melbourne. The exhibition showcases the 2016 finalists in each category and their music, which can also be heard at melbournprize.org. Audiences can vote for the winner of the Civic Choice Award 2016 at the exhibition or at melbourneprize.org