The innovative clarinetist and composer will receive a $15,000 bursary to develop a “career-enhancing creative project.”

Melbourne-based clarinettist Aviva Endean has been named as the recipient of the 2015 Freeman Classical Fellowship. The annual award recognises a classical instrumentalist aged under 30 with a bursary of $15,000 to undertake a “career-enhancing creative project.” Previous winners of the coveted award include some of Australia’s leading soloists: percussionists Timothy Constable, Claire Edwardes and Eugene Ughetti, oud player Joseph Tawadros, guitarists Geoffrey Morris and Karin Schaupp, recorder player Genevieve Lacey, didgeridoo player William Barton, violinist Kristian Winther, flautist Lina Andonovska, clarinettist Ashley Smith, pianist Tamara Anna Cislowska, and most recently pianist/composer Peter de Jager.

In addition to her work as an instrumentalist, Endean is also active as a composer and performance artist with a particular interest in creating site-specific, intimate and immersive contexts for listening. Her practice spans a wide variety of musical styles including experimental and improvised music, contemporary chamber music, world music, and inter-arts collaborations.

She has performed with leading new music organisations such as Chamber Made Opera, Golden Fur and been heard in productions by The New Music Network. Also she has co-directed new music ensemble Quiver, played with “Gypsy-death-core” band The Barons of Tang since 2009, and studied and collaborated internationally through the Vancouver Creative Music Institute, Bang on a Can Summer Music Institute, and in Germany and Amsterdam.

The winner of the Freedman Classical Fellowship is selected from a group of 15 nominees each year by a panel of distinguished judges. For this year’s award composer Nigel Westlake, Director of Artistic Planning for the Sydney Symphony Benjamin Schwartz, and Conductor of the Sydney Conservatorium Symphonic Wind Ensemble John Lynch made up the panel. Endean’s unique vision and willingness to experiment made her fellowship application particularly noteworthy for the three judges. “Aviva wants to empower audience members to find their own responses to the music and feel free to express their opinions about it. She is a wonderfully relaxed and articulate advocate for her ideas,” they said.

Get Limelight's free weekly round-up of music, arts and culture.