Resonate Magazine | Australian Music Centre

Image: Flinders Quartet had intended to tour a new work by Deborah Cheetham in 2020 - the work will now engage audiences online.  

The Australian Music Centre is delighted to announce an addition of three more grants to the Peggy Glanville-Hicks Commissions initiative. Projects by Leah Blankendaal, Benjamin Thorn and the Flinders Quartet were made possible through a generous donation by a long-term supporter of the AMC, Charles Davidson.

The initial 10 bursaries of $1,000 each were announced in May to projects proposed by Jane Sheldon, Amy Curl/SIMA, Arcadia Winds, Eric William Avery, Erik Griswold, Alice Chance, Julian Day, Ania Reynolds, Belle Chen and Jasmin Leung in response to the challenges faced by the music community during the COVID-19 pandemic. The three additional projects were selected from the 108 original proposals submitted by artists before the deadline.

Leah Blankendaal: One idea many times - an introduction to composition with a loop pedal for acoustic instruments. A digital education kit for the Australian Music Centre's Echo online learning platform, featuring video, audio excerpts and aural and composition exercises.

Flinders Quartet: Bungaree - Moving Forward Together. The project includes presenting a filmed performance of the first movement of Deborah Cheetham's new work Bungaree, followed by talks with Zoe Knighton and Cheetham, exploring the genesis of the work, the creative process and navigating the development process while social distancing.

Benjamin Thorn: Creation of choral works for performance in a live on-line environment. The project proposes to create choral pieces that, through structural temporal aleatory, allow for live rehearsal and performance in an online environment, overcoming the challenges caused by the latency of internet connections.

AMC's CEO John Davis said,

'We're very grateful to Charles - a good friend of the AMC and a steadfast supporter of Australian music. He had read with interest our earlier announcement about the quality of the applications for this scheme and the fact that we would have easily been able to fund 40 bursaries instead of ten, if we had the funds to do this. And indeed we were immediately able to add three important projects, with excellent creative and educational outcomes, to the list of the 2020 Peggy Glanville-Hicks Commissions.'

> See the AMC's funding appeal for more information about different ways you can support artists by donating to the AMC. Donations can be made online.

> See the Peggy Glanville-Hicks Commissions subpage for more details about all 13 commissions.