Resonate Magazine | Australian Music Centre

Image: Anne Boyd  
© Jim Rolon

The 2019 APRA AMCOS Art Music Fund recipients have been announced, with a total of $100,000 in grants going to the following Australian and New Zealand composers and sound artists: Anne Boyd; Anthea Caddy & Judith Hamann; Eve de Castro-Robinson; Liam Flenady; Kate Neal; James Rushford; David Shea & Monica Lim. The successful applicants' compositions demonstrate the high level of creativity, innovation and collaboration at play in our art music sector today. The funded works range from music for modern dance to opera, concerto and experimental sound art.

John Davis, CEO of the Australian Music Centre commented,

'Themes of place, the environment, and climate change are reflected in the successful applications, as well as many other applications to this year's Art Music Fund. These are themes that also dominate much of Australia's social and political agenda, demonstrating engagement by the artform with the "here and now" in a very direct way. Congratulations to these artists, and to all those who are furthering our artform through their creative work, and thanks to APRA AMCOS for their ongoing investment in commissioning new works in the art music sector.'

In line with the aims of the Fund - to create commissioned work that is complemented by an exploitation program - the successful projects have detailed plans for recordings and performances all over the world, from Melbourne to Auckland, Brussels, Berlin, London, and beyond.

2019 Art Music Fund co-recipients, cellists Anthea Caddy and Judith Hamann will co-compose a new work that explores durational process in electroacoustic composition:

'This grant allows the project freedom to pursue exciting opportunities to present the work across live and recorded mediums nationally and internationally by taking on the weight of the creation aspect of funding. The Art Music Fund is an invaluable resource for supporting complex projects', Caddy and Hamann commented.

Caddy and Hamann's project will be presented in Berlin, London, Aarhus, Amsterdam, London, and Mexico City, with Australian performances in Victoria and Western Australia.

James Rushford's electronic composition Prey Calling, developed in partnership with M.E.S.S. and the California Institute of the Arts, is inspired by the curious history of the Serge modular synthesiser as a sonic decoy for humpback whales, and will use live electronic predator calls and this historic instrument to make a performance-installation interrogating socio-political issues of language, environment and conservation.

'The Art Music Fund provides a special platform for composers and performers by focusing on creation. Its supporting of project exposure and longevity is also an important focus, helping composers think of different strategies and outcomes for presenting their work', Rushford said.

Composer, Professor Anne Boyd received funding for her full-length opera drawing upon materials from the last decades of the life of Olive Muriel Pink (1886-1975), painter, anthropologist, botanist and social activist on behalf of the Warlpiri and Arrernte people of the Alice Springs region.

NZ composer Dr Eve de Castro-Robinson will write a twenty-minute trumpet concerto for performance by Bede Williams. The proposed work entitled Clarion references various urgent calls to demand action for climate change, pairing the braiding of Scottish music with the sonic possibilities of a conch shell.

Queensland-based Liam Flenady will compose a 30-minute work The Five Seasons for trombone and percussion, based on themes of geological time, non-Western concepts of time and seasons, and ecological crisis.

Victorian composer Kate Neal will compose a new work exploring the intersection between multiple sound aesthetics, movement, and lighting. The work will be developed in collaboration with Ensemble Offspring, Dancenorth and electronic composer Grischa Lichtenbergerwhich.

David Shea and Monica Lim's (Victoria) The Heart Sutra Project is a series of compositions for a hybrid, electromagnetic piano.

Since 2016, the APRA Art Music Fund has awarded more than $400,000 to Australian and New Zealand composers. For information about previous recipients, please see the APRA AMCOS website. See also: news article about the announcement.