Attention: The Art Music Fund Will Return In 2017 With Another $100,000 Up For Grabs

After awarding 12 established and emerging composers grants worth a total of $100,000 in its augural year, APRA AMCOS have announced their Art Music Fund will return in 2017 to continue supporting Australian and New Zealand composers.

Launched this year, the fund exists to see new works distributed as widely as possible among local and international audiences, and has already provided grants to Australasian composers including Liza Lim and Dan Thorpe, as well as Sandy Evans, Cat Hope and Erkki Veltheim.

Composers have the chance to share in $100,000 worth of funding to create new commissioned work thanks to APRA AMCOS, our nation’s body representing the licensing of songwriters, composers, and music publishers.

Dean Ormston, APRA AMCOS Head of Member Services, says the organisation looks forward to helping composers create exceptional new work.

“The Art Music Fund reflects APRA AMCOS’ commitment to the art music sector and the important role it plays in the ecosystem of new Australian music,” he said in a statement, also explaining that APRA AMCOS will be working with Creative Partnership Australia and the Australian Cultural Fund on increasing the fund's value in future.

Aussie and Kiwi composers are now invited to apply for the 2017 Art Music Fund; the work must be both collaborative and commercially viable (that is, able to be performed multiple times), as the Art Music Fund is designed to help support and further composers in the light of recent legislative cutbacks to the creative industries.

"The Art Music Fund provides resources to support composers which is much needed at a time of generally reduced government funding for individual artists in Australia," Lim, one of this year's funding recipients, said in a statement.

"The support of APRA AMCOS and the AMC (Australian Music Centre) gives significant industry-level recognition to the field of contemporary classical music encouraging innovation and artistic risk-taking in this area."

Thorpe, a fellow 2016 Art Music Fund recipient, says applicants for the grant pool can be of any age, stage in their career, and any type of project.

"It's important to support new music in all of its forms, and by all those who make it," he said. "As an early career composer, I was honoured to be a recipient because those joining me all represent fascinating and different directions in new music, and to be considered even a small part of that was very humbling."

Applications for the 2017 Art Music Fund close 5pm on Tuesday 21 February, with successful applicants notified by the end of April 2017.

For application guidelines and more details about the Art Music Fund, head to the APRA AMCOS website.