Finsterer, Dean, Hindson and Ford head the 2014 APRA AMCOS nominations.
Australia’s most prestigious awards for new classical music, the APRA AMCOS Art Music Awards announced their list of finalists today, at the same time as announcing a new partnership with Limelight Magazine, as the 2014 awards sponsor.
“Limelight is passionate about classical and art music, and we are proud to support these iconic awards as they form an integral part of the Australian music landscape and highlight great achievements by leading professionals within the artform,” says Publisher Andrew Batt-Rawden. Established and up-and-coming composers are recognised across 11 categories, which span contemporary classical, jazz and experimental music.
Canberra-born Mary Finsterer heads the list of nominations being recognised for her double bass concerto, Lake Ice, which was premiered last year by Kees Boersma and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. The concerto is up for orchestral work of the year against Brett Dean’s The Last Days of Socrates (as performed by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Peter Coleman-Wright and Simone Young), Nigel Westlake and Lior’s popular hit Compassion and James Ledger’s violin concerto, Golden Years as premiered by Margaret Blades and WASO.
Brett Dean
Composer, conductor and violist Brett Dean also gets the nod for performance of the year for Socrates where he’s up against Finsterer again, Matthew Hindson’s Second String Quartet as played by the Elias String Quartet and Annie Hsieh’s Icy Disintegration as performed by the Arcko Symphonic Ensemble. Finsterer’s chamber piece Aerea, which was performed by the Monash Art Ensemble is nominated for instrumental work of the year making her the most nominated composer in the pack.
In the vocal category, Andrew Ford is a front-runner for his savvy Last Words, the parting shots of the famous as performed by Jane Sheldon and the Seraphim Trio. He’ll meet strong competition though in the form of From a Black Sky, Sandra France’s evocative work reflecting the catastrophic bushfires that tore through rural Canberra in 2003. Australian Voices conductor and composer Gordon Hamilton is also in the frame for MOON: an Epic Song of Love, as is Eve Klein’s electro-ambient one-woman opera The Pomegranate Cycle.
This year’s Awards coincide with the 40th Anniversary of the Australian Music Centre, an organisation dedicated to the promotion and support of the art form as well as the creators and performers of contemporary classical, improvised jazz, experimental music and sound art in Australia. Limelight’s sponsorship of the event reflects their renewed commitment to Australian contemporary music under their new publisher.
Matthew Hindson (photo by Dan White)
The Awards categories also recognise excellence by organisations and individuals, music education, experimental music and in music in regional areas. The Awards will be presented at a gala event in Melbourne on Tuesday August 26, and will be hosted by Walkley Award-winning journalist, author and co-host of ABC-TV News Breakfast, Virginia Trioli. Recorder virtuoso Genevieve Lacey once again curates the live performances on the night.
Limelight will be providing its social media followers with up to the minute reports on all the winners and highlights from the awards via its twitter, Instagram and Facebook streams on the night.
The full list of nominations is as follows:
Work of the Year: Instrumental
Title: Aerea
Composer: Mary Finsterer
Performed by: Monash Art Ensemble
Title: Inferno
Composer: Elliott Gyger
Performed by: Michael Kieran Harvey
Title: String Quartet No 2
Composer: Matthew Hindson
Performed by: Elias String Quartet
Publishers: Hal Leonard Australia Pty Ltd obo Faber Music Ltd
Title: String Quartet No 5
Composer: Andrew Ford
Performed by: Australian String Quartet
Work of the Year: Orchestral
Title: Compassion
Composers: Nigel Westlake and Lior Attar
Performed by: Sydney Symphony Orchestra conducted by Nigel Westlake
Publisher: Mushroom Music Pty Ltd
Title: Golden Years
Composer: James Ledger
Performed by: West Australian Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Otto Tausk, Margaret Blades soloist
Title: Lake Ice: (Missed Tales No 1)
Composer: Mary Finsterer
Performed by: Sydney Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Jessica Cottis, Kees Boersma soloist
Title: The Last Days of Socrates
Composers: Brett Dean with text by Graeme Ellis
Performed by: Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Simone Young, Peter Coleman-Wright soloist
Publishers: Hal Leonard Australia Pty Ltd obo Boosey and Hawkes
Work of the Year: Vocal
Title: From a Black Sky
Composer: Sandra France
Text: Helen Nourse
Performed by: Orchestra and children’s chorus conducted by Dr David Kram
Title: Last Words
Composer: Andrew Ford
Text: Tim Winton, Dorothy Porter et al.
Performed by: Jane Sheldon and the Seraphim Trio
Title: MOON: an Epic Song of Love
Composer: Gordon Hamilton
Text: Venero Armanno
Performed by: The Australian Voices conducted by Gordon Hamilton
Title: The Pomegranate Cycle
Composer: Eve Klein
Text: Eve Klein
Performed by: Eve Klein
Work of the Year: Jazz
Title: Everything Here Is Possible
Composers: Alister Spence and Myra Melford (GEMA)
Performed by: Alister Spence and Myra Melford
Title: Happy
Composer: Quentin Angus
Performed by: Quentin Angus, Alon Tayar, Bambam Rodriguez & Ari Hoenig
Title: Network of Lines
Composer: Tilman Robinson
Performed by: Tilman Robinson, Peter Knight, Callum G’Froerer, Erkki Veltheim, Judith Hamann, Brett Thompson, Berish Bilander, Sam Zerna and Hugh Harvey
Title: Tall Tales
Composer: Paul Grabowsky
Performed by: Monash Art Ensemble
Publisher: J Albert & Son Pty Ltd
Performance of the Year
Performer: Arcko Symphonic Ensemble
Title: Icy Disintegration
Composer: Annie Hsieh
Performer: Elias String Quartet
Title: String Quartet No.2
Composer: Matthew Hindson
Publishers: Hal Leonard Australia Pty Ltd obo Faber Music Ltd
Performer: Sydney Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Jessica Cottis, Kees Boersma soloist
Title: Lake Ice: (Missed Tales No 1)
Composer: Mary Finsterer
Performer: Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Simone Young, soloist Peter Coleman-Wright
Title: The Last Days of Socrates
Composers: Brett Dean with text by Graeme Ellis
Publishers: Hal Leonard Australia Pty Ltd obo Boosey and Hawkes
Award for Excellence by an Organisation
Arcko Symphonic Ensemble for 2013 activities
Australian Art Orchestra for touring, community building, recording, creativity & leadership
Chamber Made Opera for commissioning & presenting cutting-edge chamber opera
Frequency Oz for 2013 activities
Award for Excellence by an Individual
Carl Vine for exemplary contribution to Musica Viva Australia in 2013 as Artistic Director, and to the wider arts and cultural industry
Catherine Crock for The Hush Collection, Volumes 1 -13
David Montgomery for AMEB Project
Kim Waldock for contribution to Music Education in Australia
Award for Excellence in Music Education
Cathy Aggett for new Australian art songs for low voices
Karen Carey for the MLC School Opera House Concert 2013, plus a legacy of 25 years of concerts and commissions
Topology for Music Education Program “Top Up”
West Australian Symphony Orchestra for 2013 Education Program
Award for Excellence in a Regional Area
Bogong Centre for Sound Culture/Bogong ELECTRIC
Goulburn Regional Conservatorium for The Goulburn Oratorio
Award for Excellence in Experimental Music
Cat Hope for Drawn From Sound
Ensemble Offspring with Oren Ambarchi and Martin Ng for Ligeti Morphed
Eugene Ughetti, Robin Fox and Speak Percussion for Transducer
Madeleine Flynn and Tim Humphrey & the City of Melbourne for 5 Short Blasts
Award for Excellence in Jazz
Alister Spence and Myra Melford for Everything Here Is Possible
Andrea Keller for the creation, release and presentation of three contemporary jazz projects in 2013
Jonathan Zwartz for the recording The Remembering And Forgetting Of The Air
The Street Theatre for Capital Jazz Project – a nine-day midwinter jazz festival
