CONTENT COURTESY APRA AMCOS
Eleven composers from Australia and New Zealand are the recipients of the Art Music Fund, with each receiving a $5,000 grant towards the commission of a proposed work.
The Art Music Fund is an initiative of APRA AMCOS, in partnership with the Australian Music Centre and, for the first time, SOUNZ.
The 2022 Art Music Fund recipients are Cat Hope, Corrina Bonshek, Hamed Sadeghi, Kate Milligan, Linda Kouvaras, Maree Sheehan, Paul Clift, Riki Neihana Gooch, Robert Curgenven, Ross McHenry and Wally Gunn.
This year’s $55,000 total allocation will support new and thought-provoking projects covering a range of inspiration and topics including the work of teenage climate activists, Persian Sufism philosophy, a Dutch shipwreck, the Song of Solomon, ‘iceberg songs’, the Māori voice in conducting, the intricacies of the pipe organ and more.
The commissions will be presented as post-minimalist chamber music; an oratorio for voice; Persian classical music, jazz and improvisation; large scale chamber work; live performance installation and more.
Since 2016, the fund has granted more than half a million dollars to new works that have been presented in Australia, New Zealand and around the world at concert halls, festivals, and immersive settings. Victorian composer Cat Hope was a 2016 recipient for her work ‘Dark Hip Falls’ and becomes the first two-time grantee with this year’s Chamber Made commission ‘A Slow Emergency’.
The successful applicants’ compositions demonstrate the high level of creativity, innovation and collaboration happening amidst the challenges facing the sector.
2022 Art Music Fund recipient Wally Gunn says:
“Contemporary art music is innovative and experimental, and explores the outer edges of musical possibility. These innovations and explorations frequently find their way back to popular music, commercial music, and screen music, expanding the vocabulary of musical expression across the board. Art music needs funding so that the innovators and experimenters can keep pushing the boundaries, and so that music of all kinds can sound new, exciting, and vital.”
Catherine Haridy, CEO, Australian Music Centre says:
“The Australian Music Centre is thrilled to be a part of the Art Music Fund. We are proud to see such diversity across art practices and cultural representation, and the deep breadth of talent within our community. Congratulations to all recipients, and we look forward to seeing the outcomes of these projects.”
Diana Marsh, Chief Executive, SOUNZ Centre for New Zealand Music says:
“SOUNZ is delighted to have been involved for the first time with APRA AMCOS’ Art Music Fund in 2022, especially with the increase of opportunities for New Zealand recipients. We are thrilled that the projects selected are from two SOUNZ composers who are working at the leading edge of music practice in Aotearoa New Zealand.”
Cameron Lam, Art Music Lead, APRA AMCOS says:
“At a time when support for the arts is critical, Australian and New Zealand composers, improvisers, and sound artists continue to show that they are visionary in their outlook and goals. APRA AMCOS is proud to support these projects, which deeply engage with our contemporary world in multiple ways, and provide their creators with the stability they need through the Art Music Fund.”
Art Music Fund applications were assessed on the viability of the proposed project, the quality of the work, and the strategy for the life and reach of the work. View the full list of past recipients.
2022 Art Music Fund recipients:
Cat Hope, VIC
‘A Slow Emergency’ is a large scale work produced by Chamber Made. The work is devised by theatre director Adena Jacobs, composer Cat Hope and Chamber Made Artistic Director Tamara Saulwick, in conversation with a core team of teenage artist/activists as a response to the school climate strike movement. The work is equal parts funeral dirge and shimmering fantasy; choral chaos and dark energy; elation, contemplation and hope.
Corrina Bonshek, QLD
‘The space between us…’ is a live performance installation for roaming audience and a spatialised ensemble who activate the sonic environment of highly reverberant space. To be presented in Australia in 2022 and in Portugal in 2023 with celebrated percussionist Luis Bittencourt.
Hamed Sadeghi, NSW
‘Empty Voices’ is a world-class fusion of Persian Classical Music, Jazz and improvisation featuring the tar virtuoso Hamed Sadeghi along with Australian Jazz figures and emerging artists.
Inspired by the notion of purity, love, liberty inherent to the Persian Sufism philosophy, a school of thought encompassing mysticism which has often influenced Middle Eastern artists.
Kate Milligan, WA
Kate will create a new work for Renaissance flute and electronics. The work will be performed by Australian early music specialist Jonty Coy (NL) on a unique replica of a sixteenth-century flute recently discovered by archaeologists on a Dutch shipwreck.
Linda Kouvaras, VIC
The multi-movement ‘Herring Island Piano Sonata’ will be a collaboration between composer Linda Kouvaras, pianist Coady Green, writer N’arweet Carolyn Briggs of the Boon Warrung Foundation, narrator Tiriki Onus, Head of the Wilin Centre, University of Melbourne, and sound designer Roger Alsop, in an audio tapestry of piano, soundscape and narration.
Maree Sheehan, NZ
The Song(s) of Solomon Project is a multi-disciplinary arts and music project that seeks to explore and respond to the profound and extensive layers of Ralph Hotere’s and Cilla McQueen’s work ‘Song of Solomon’. This project invites 14 Māori composers to create waiata, spoken word, sonic soundscape, rap, poetry to music either individually and or collaboratively to produce and record 14 sonic works that respond to the 14 panels of the ‘Song of Solomon’ for future exhibitions.
Paul Clift, Switzerland
Paul’s new piece, for flute, clarinet, accordion, violin, cello and electronics, will be entitled ‘State of Matter’. It will use hydrophone recordings of the audible, sustained vibrations that occur as icebergs rub against one another or the ocean floor, or as they break apart—so-called “iceberg songs”—as the basis of the electronics and to generate some of the instrumental material.
Riki Neihana Gooch, NZ
Riki is working towards developing a vocabulary of conducting directives for an ensemble of Tāonga Pūoro players that is an extension of the ‘Conduction’ method, developed by the late Butch Morris. This methodology is the intersection of composed music and improvisation. The aim is to find a Māori voice within the conduction practice and to document the process by way of a recorded performance.
Robert Curgenven, Ireland
New works for pipe organ commissioned by Richard Thomas Foundation (UK) to be realized at the Orgelpark Amsterdam and an electronic version at MONOM Berlin’s 48 speaker spatial soundsystem. These new works will use specific approaches to tonality and overtones focusing on air pressure control, sculpting timbre and tuning (intonation).
Ross McHenry, SA
‘For Six Hands and Six Synthesisers’ is a major new work by multi-award-winning composer Ross McHenry for three acoustic pianos, six Modular Synthesisers and tape delay. The work uses post-minimalist compositional ideas alongside modular synthesiser compositional concepts to create a unique new chamber music work that will premiere in late 2022.
Wally Gunn, VIC
The new work will be a narrative-driven 75-minute oratorio for six voices, based on themes of dystopias, space travel, and evolution.
