Announcing the 2024 APRA Best Jazz Composition Award finalists

Anita Schwabe is a jazz pianist and composer currently tutoring at the New Zealand School of Music, Wellington. She has studied both in New Zealand and at the Koninklijk Conservatorium in the Netherlands, the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada and Berklee College of Music in the US. She has performed at all major domestic jazz festivals in NZ with her own groups and as a member of the Rodger Fox Big Band. In 2020, Schwabe was a recipient of the Wellington Jazz Festival commission, writing ‘A Snapshot of Wellington’ with photographer Saskia van Dijk accompanying the suite. In 2018, Schwabe won APRA Best Jazz Composition for ‘Spring Tide’ from release Eat Your Greens featuring Ron Samsom, Cameron McArthur and Roger Manins. Schwabe was also a 2021 Best Jazz Composition finalist for ‘August Augmentation’. ‘Drifting’ was commissioned for the Royal New Zealand Air Force Jazz Orchestra and features on their 2023 album Kaiwhakatere - Navigator. Inspired by Sam Hunts' poem ‘My White Ship’, the piece emulates the ebb and flow of tides and of relationships and features Kaito Walley’s trombone playing as its central melody.

Mitch Dwyer is a guitarist and producer originally from Ōtautahi | Christchurch, currently based in Pōneke | Wellington. Dwyer has released music under the pseudonyms 'Mitch Zachry' and 'SPACE FOE,' as well as having recorded and performed with artists including Jack Page and Darren Pickering (Small Worlds). Dwyer holds a Bachelor of Music Arts from Ara Institute of Canterbury. Dwyer released Flower Ocean Burning Sun at the beginning of 2024 as the debut album from the cosmic jazz entity ‘SPACE FOE’. The album’s opening track, titled 'Morning Like an Infinite Clarity,' evokes a sense of new possibilities imbued with the track’s titular ‘infinite clarity’. Featuring Nicholas Baucke-Maunsell on soprano saxophone, Cheena Rae on flute, and Hikurangi Schaverien-Kaa on drums, all other parts are played by Dwyer – including writing and production.

2021 APRA Best Jazz Composition Award winner Lucien Johnson has been described as “a saxophonist of the highest repute” (Giles Peterson, BBC). His music has taken him around the globe, touring and performing in the USA, Brazil, Europe, China, Japan, Haiti and India. A highly imaginative music creator with a career spanning over two decades, ‘Satellites’ comes from Johnson’s sophomore solo recording Ancient Relics, following on from their 2021 debut Wax /// Wane. Released earlier this year, Ancient Relics has a unique quality, which values contemplation and ephemerality above all else. Johnson's releases have received rave reviews in international press with France Musique calling them “bewitching and astonishing,” and London Jazz News describing them as “mystical, a touch retro and increasingly spellbinding.”

Dave Wilson is a saxophonist, clarinetist, composer, scholar, and contributor to the music community of Te Whanganui-a-Tara. With his 2023 album, Ephemeral, he was a finalist for Te Manu Taki Tautito o te Tau | Best Jazz Artist at the 2024 Aotearoa Music Awards. Wilson’s 2024 APRA nominated composition, ‘What shines is a thought that lost its way’, was written as a reflection on the challenges we all seemingly faced in 2020. For the composition, ‘the Aurora’ served as inspiration - as did Rita Dove’s poem ‘Aurora Borealis’, from her 1986 collection Thomas and Beulah. With multiple album releases, Wilson has also co-authored the book Gateways to Understanding Music, presenting all music as worthy of understanding through deep listening, a tome used by students in music appreciation courses around the world. Wilson’s music is about people connecting with one another and the world around them. His projects are all grounded in his conviction that musical interaction built on trust, respect, gratitude, and generosity can infuse our communities with those same qualities.