'A Really Exciting Time': Esti Zilber Reflects On Another Massive Year For Sounds Australia

When it comes to Australians crushing it on the world stage, their own talent, tenacity, and team are the ones who often get the majority of the praise.

However, when it comes to those who make it possible for these artists to spread their wings and set their sights beyond borders, it's often the likes of Sounds Australia that we have to look at.

Having first launched back in 2009, Sounds Australia was created as a way to assist local acts make inroads on the global stage.

"The figures speak for themselves," said Minister For The Arts Tony Burke back in 2016. "In 2009, 49 Australian artists were appearing at international events. In just 5 years Sounds Australia took that to 263 – an increase of 437 per cent.”

Indeed, we can thank Sounds Australia for helping countless Australian acts break through. Acts like Flume serve as stellar examples, with Sounds Australia having helped the then-rising electronic get onto New York's CMJ conference ahead of an appearance at Austin's annual SXSW. The rest, as they say, is history.

16 years down the line, we've seen Sounds Australia weather a few industry-related storms (including a threat of defunding close to a decade ago), only to come out the other side, stronger than ever, and determined to spread the word of Aussie acts on the global stage at all times.

Through the vast majority of Sounds Australia's existence, Esti Zilber has been an integral part of the puzzle. Starting off as a Creative Producer, since late 2023, Zilber has served as Executive Producer, and just last month was named one of The Music's Power 50 for her tireless work promoting Australian music.

While she describes the work of Sounds Australia as challenging at times, she explains that it's a rewarding experience ensuring that she and the team stay abreast of trends and challenges facing Australian music, while also remaining up to date on international markets and – of course – what artists themselves want.

As a result, her role as Executive Producer is one that she describes as having no standard "day to day" but one that sees her and the team effectively serving as a "really big global traffic controller."

"In this huge world, we are trying to navigate for our artists and where we can be most effective," she summarises. "I see my role as really trying to understand where the new opportunities are and making sure that we're not overlooking them. Making sure we're able to stay ahead of that, engaging consultants that can help us with all the data that we now have at our fingertips in terms of understanding where our music is tracking and how we can capitalise on that, and also just making sure that people know that we are here for them.

"We're a very small and collaborative team, so making sure everyone feels supported and that they're not taking on too much with so much travel, it is a very demanding role. So knowing what our limits are, ensuring that the team are all on the same page, and when we go into market – whether it's one of us or five of us on ground – we're all singing from the same hymn book, and we are all working towards this same goal."

Indeed, the demanding nature of the role means that as Zilber explains all of this, she's just hours away from hopping on a plane to Chile for one last trip of 2025.

Ultimately though, she points out that Sounds Australia is such a hard-working organisation due to the myriad stakeholders at play. It's not just the artists, but their managers and their teams, in addition to financial stakeholders, their partners and – ultimately – Australian culture in general.

"It's a really big job," she admits. "It's such an enormous privilege that I get to do all this with, honestly, some of the most gifted and experienced music industry players I could hope for."

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Needless to say, the main takeaway is that Sounds Australia is a busy organisation and one with many irons in many fires. However, along the way, they manage to continuously rack up a massive amount of wins.

In fact, it's almost a little difficult to scale the amount of wins they've seen this year. On the top level, they've engaged with 123 Aussie acts, comprising 354 musicians across 34 cities and 14 countries.

They've undertaken in-depth reconnaissance across new events in Japan, Chile, Mexico, Canada, and the US, with three trade missions that included industry immersion in Mexico, India, and Indonesia. Additionally, they've engaged with the ASEAN-Australia Centre to continue exploring markets across southeast Asia as well.

But it's not just the exports, because in 2025 Sounds Australia have also welcomed 22 international participants from ten countries into Australia for tailored inbound missions. These have included individuals from countries like Colombia, USA, UK, Japan, Hungary, France, Germany, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand involving themselves with Party In The Paddock, Laneway Festival, Surrounding Sound/APRA Art Music Awards, the Melbourne International Film Festival, SXSW Sydney, Melbourne International Jazz Festival, and ARIA Week.

While some might find a dance card like this looking a little bit overwhelming, Zilber is thrilled.

"I think it's been a really exciting time for exchange," she says, pointing to markets in southeast Asia. "I feel like we all get those Luminate reports and the media reports, and the data is showing this incredible growth in these areas. I think a big win for Sounds Australia was understanding how we can get data that is specific to Australian artists and our market, and really dedicating ourselves to immersing the team in those places and understand what the strategic play is. 

"It feels like we're really making headway with that and understanding that Asia is not one place that someone is going to be able to export to, but being able to give very specific feedback and Intel around where and why and how."

While the potential of markets like Mexico are also exciting the Sounds Australia team, Zilber points out that the organisation's role is to effectively minimise the role of borders when it comes to Australian music and make it so that everyone is playing in a level field when it comes to local artists.

"Our aim is really to be fighting against the tyranny of distance," she explains. "So our inbound programs work to sort of collapse that, along with the cost barriers for artists to be going into international markets. 

"It really allowed us to deliver a broader, deeper access to global industry than they would be able to achieve necessarily, and especially in the current climate with rising costs and the pressures on securing US visas, what we're hoping to do is really offer unforgettable experiences that bind music to the place that it's made.

"And also to forge these like long-lasting international networks that act as a catalyst for outcomes, especially for those export-ready artists."

One of the more exciting things about Sounds Australia's efforts in recent years has been the return to pre-COVID levels of growth. In fact, Zilber points out it's "not just a return, but superseding them."

Sounds Australia is able to say this with confidence, too. After each and every event, the organisation sends out a survey to gain insight into the success of their efforts. They're incredibly staunch when it comes to the enforcement of the survey's completion, with those involved in a Sounds Australia showcase being obligated to complete such a survey. As a result, they've racked up a 90-95% completion rate.

"When we talk about our outcomes, they are very tangible and very real," Zilber explains. "So we know that the program is still working."

As a result of Sounds Australia's efforts, the organisation has also been able to gain a strong insight into what sort of local music is catching on globally.

Most recently, we've seen acts like Amyl And The Sniffers make huge in-roads around the world, while the likes of Dom Dolla, Ninajirachi, and RÜFÜS DU SOL are also becoming huge draws in the US, shining a massive spotlight on the Australian electronic scene.

But what have these success stories told us? Which genres are showing the most promise, or serving as the most fertile ground for aspiring local acts?

"There's very exciting movements happening across our country music scene, without a doubt," Zilber notes. "The neo jazz scene and what we are achieving across the art music space is absolutely growing and part of what we are excited about is shifting that narrative of art and classical. Europe is known as being the hub of excellence for art and neo jazz and what we are showing really clearly is that Australians can deliver on that in quite an extraordinary way. 

"And because it's coming from a completely different place, we do have our own sound, and it is something that the rest of the world should be sitting up and paying attention to.

"I think our heavy music scene has always over delivered, has always punched above its weight, and has always led with that really DIY, ambitious approach," she adds. "They get it done. They are community driven. You couldn't find a heavy music festival overseas that doesn't already have an Australian representation on it."

Heavy music is certainly an odd duck when it comes to its success. It continues to do well on the global scene, yet it rarely fits well into showcase line-ups for Australian acts. It's reasons like this that have also given rise to the creation of their Global Gig Guide. 

A comprehensive resource that points to the Australian artists performing ticketed shows all over the world, it has quickly become one of the most-visited pages on the Sounds Australia website.

"No matter who the Australian artist is, you could go to that and see which Australians were playing," Zilber says. "Not just festivals, but also their own headline shows. If there is an Australian artist with tickets on sale, in an international market, technically it should be across that Global Gig Guide. 

"We're really working to promote just how much Australian music is out there in the world at the moment across every genre. It feels like a lot of the time, we are very remote and isolated. We are a relatively tiny population, but everyone can name an Australian band that they love. 

"I think sometimes our problem is that they will name a band that they love and not realise they're Australian," she adds.

This is the sort of thing that Sounds Australia have been seeing more and more. Acts such as King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have swiftly become a vital part of the global psychedelic rock scene, and while they're part of the Australian national identity, Zilber explains that a lot of international fans are often unaware of the band's Melbourne origins.

"The export office is really making sure that when Australian music is doing well overseas, it is understood that that is part of our national identity, and we claim it very proudly," she explains.

With 2025 reaching its end, 2026 is fast coming into view for Zilber and the rest of the Sounds Australia team. While it's hard to predict the myriad wins that will pepper their list of achievements in 12 months time, there's already a lot on the boil for the coming months.

"It's exciting. There's a lot of reconnaissance next year, so a lot of the Sounds Australia team building on what we had worked on in 2025," Zilber explains. "We've got trips planned to Japan, two trips into the Philippines and we're working a lot closer with our neighbours across southeast Asia and the Asia Pacific – really understanding how we can be doing more in that exchange space as well."

But it goes just beyond that. There's plans for the return of Australia House at the Amsterdam Dance Event in the Netherlands, a return to Nashville's CMA Fest, a third trade mission to Mexico, and two trips to India. "A lot more time on planes," she laughs.

"I am looking forward to some more consulting with folks that work across data to help us understand, not just how we can tell the story of Australian music success, which we know has always punched above its weight, but to really use that data to understand how to construct and deliver a strategy for specific territories that show so much promise."

While Australian artists have been making big waves in the likes of India and the Philippines (places where a strong Australian diaspora already exists), Sounds Australia also seeks to continue building upon this momentum with further education and insight into how to navigate these markets and capitalise upon their successes.

"It's about doing the reconnaissance trips, going back, doing the press, doing more shows, and really understanding things like going into the Philippines is not the same as going into any other market," Zilber explains. 

"So artists are going to have to spend time there and understand what it means to play, essentially, like a Westfield, which is their big play there, and what that means, what it can lead to, and who is going to be best placed on ground to help them deliver those outcomes."

Needless to say, with so many wins on the board across these past 16 years, Sounds Australia are effectively still just getting started when it comes to their efforts, and 2026 will only continue to underline their impact on the local music scene.

"It's a really, really exciting time," Zilber concludes. "There's lots on our dance card, but it's about always going back to trying to make sure that we're in the right place at the right time, and that is going to see as many Australian artists be able to benefit from it."

Visit the Sounds Australia website for more information about their work and the upcoming events they’re involved in.