Resonate Magazine | Australian Music Centre

Image: Tony Gould  

Pianist and composer Tony Gould (AM) is the winner of the prestigious 2009 Don Banks Music Award. This $60,000 award is presented annually by the Australia Council for the Arts. Previous recipients of the award include composers Peter Sculthorpe and Richard Meale, music educator John Curro, and conductor Richard Gill, as well as jazz legends Bernie McGann and Bob Sedergreen.

The award was presented to Gould in a ceremony, held yesterday in Melbourne. According to the Australia Council's CEO Kathy Keele, Gould’s achievements place him at the forefront of Australian jazz and improvised music.

'Dr Gould has made a stellar contribution to Australia’s cultural life as an outstanding pianist, composer and music educator. His work combining improvisation with classical music traditions has been key to his enormous impact on Australian music, and especially on his many students. He has been at the vanguard of improvised music and helped craft a distinctive Australian musical voice', she said.

Tony Gould's career has embraced many styles of music, from jazz and other improvisatory musics to traditional and contemporary classical music. One of Australia's most respected musicians, Gould has been involved with an extraordinary number of recording projects over the past three decades, both as pianist and as composer. He has been at the forefront of music education in Australia via various tertiary institutions. He has a PhD from La Trobe University, a Master of Arts from Monash University and a Bachelor of Music from Melbourne University.

Tony Gould was awarded the 2005 Classical Music Award for ‘Outstanding Contribution to Australian Music in Education’. On Australia Day 2007, he was awarded an Order of Australia (AM) ‘for service to the arts as a music educator particularly through the Victorian College of the Arts, to the promotion of jazz and improvised music and as a pianist and composer’.

‘I am honoured to receive the Don Banks Award and join this group that have had such a profound impact on Australian music,’ Gould said in his acceptance speech.

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