2 Aotearoa NZ composers are included in the 11 recipients for the 2024 Art Music Fund, and have been awarded $7,500 grants for new projects.
Eve de Castro-Robinson and Nathaniel Otley are the Aotearoa recipients, with exciting projects in development alongside the Australian recipients: Anna Liebzeit, Cameron Deyell, Christine Pan, Dominik Karski, Emily Sheppard, James Rushford, Mindy Meng Wang, Monica Lim, Peter Knight and Sia Ahmad.
The Art Music Fund is a partnership of APRA AMCOS, the Australian Music Centre and SOUNZ.
Eleven composers from Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand are the recipients of the Art Music Fund, with each receiving a $7,500 (AUD) grant towards the commission of a proposed work.
The Art Music Fund, celebrating its ninth funding round, is an initiative of APRA AMCOS, in partnership with the Australian Music Centre and SOUNZ Centre for New Zealand Music.
Eve de Castro-Robinson and Nathaniel Otley are the 2024 Aotearoa recipients, with exciting projects in development alongside the Australian recipients: Anna Liebzeit, Cameron Deyell, Christine Pan, Dominik Karski, Emily Sheppard, James Rushford, Mindy Meng Wang, Monica Lim, Peter Knight and Sia Ahmad.
This year's $82,500 total allocation will support a range of fascinating new projects both personal and global in scale. Commissions delve into a range of topics: ecological impacts and ocean sound, 3D sound, Chinese rituals and beliefs, gender identity and faith, and much 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. This year's recipients join an impressive list of composers to benefit from the fund including Maree Sheehan, Riki Neihana Gooch, Salina Fisher, Nadia Freeman, Celeste Oram, Dylan Lardelli, and Samuel Holloway.
The successful applicants’ compositions demonstrate the high level of creativity, innovation and collaboration across disciplines, genres and formats, while working in a challenging funding landscape.
2024 Art Music Fund recipient Nathaniel Otley (NZ):
Ōtepoti, Aotearoa (Dunedin, New Zealand) composer Nathaniel Otely, creates music through an ecological lens. His commissioned work this rising tide, these former wetlands will be a new chamber orchestra work for the Dunedin Symphony Orchestra and the Southbank Sinfonia that explores the ecological and cultural histories of former wetlands areas in both Aotearoa and the UK.
"The opportunities for the commissioning of Art Music in Aotearoa and Australia are incredibly limited so having the Art Music Fund dedicated to supporting the creation of Art Music in the two countries is very important. You can see looking at previous recipients the important role it plays in getting important and resonant projects off the ground and we'd be worse off as a community without its continued presence.
"I was very fortunate for this application to have fantastic support from two orchestras who allowed me to be curious and ambitious when building the proposal for my application. This was a very privileged position to be in as it allowed me to develop a project that had resonance to me as well as each partner organisation."
2024 Art Music Fund recipient Eve de Castro Robinson (NZ):
Hugely experienced and established composer Eve de Castro Robinson is based in Tāmaki Makaurau, though her works are commissioned and performed around Aotearoa and internationally. Her work Earth's Eye for clarinet, violin, viola, and cello, is the major commission from her At the World’s Edge Festival 2024 Composer in Residence role in Queenstown this year, and will be premiered with two performances at Rippon Hall in Wānaka during the two-week festival. Both performances will be multi-camera filmed by SOUNZ and recorded by Radio NZ.
"This grant will substantially enhance my AWE Composer in Residence commission. It is invaluable having the Art Music Fund, the only local composition award which specifically supports composers to create works with a long artistic and performance life, displaying compositional craft and representing excellence. This is the second time I have received the award, and each time I have chosen a substantial work that has a wide reach, and long life. It is important to plan ahead and make sure there are several performance, and recording opportunities, preferably both in Aotearoa and internationally."
Claire Szabó, Interim Chief Executive | SOUNZ Centre for New Zealand Music I Toi te Arapūoru
SOUNZ is very pleased to be continuing our work with APRA AMCOS and the Australian Music Centre in 2024, this year supporting two recipients from Aotearoa New Zealand. The quality of applications was high once again, representing the innovation and diversity that underpins the direction of art music that Kiwi composers, collaborators and performers are taking. Well done to our winners and all that applied.
Dean Ormston, CEO, APRA AMCOS
The Art Music Fund continues to grow in impact, reach and prestige and is a testament to the outstanding work of its many recipients over the years. We are proud to continue to make this funding possible and grateful to our partners Australian Music Centre and SOUNZ, and cannot wait to hear and see what this year's composers bring to the world.
Catherine Haridy, CEO, Australian Music Centre
The recipients of this year’s Art Music Fund each have a unique and powerful creative voice, demonstrating the vibrancy of art music practice in Australia and New Zealand, and which deserve to be heard. We are proud to continue our partnership with APRA AMCOS and SOUNZ in this initiative to support the development of their work.
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.