Chet FakerA slew of Australia's biggest and best musical talent have been recognised for their work at this year's Helpmann Awards, including Aussie legend Jimmy Barnes and popular indie-electro act Chet Faker who have been nominated in the category of Best Australian Contemporary Concert.
Barnes has been given the nod in honour of his 30th anniversary shows last year, 30:30 HIndsight Greatest Hits Tour which took him across the country to perform 27 sold out shows, while Faker was recognised for his national tour which took place this year.
The 26-year-old Melbourne act performed his completely sold out tour across six capital cities, as well as two shows as part of Perth International Festival.
Other acts to be included for their respective Aussie tours include famous national singers Kylie Minogue and Tina Arena.
Kate Miller-Heidke has also been recognised for her work in Aus opera, The Rabbits, with a nomination for Best Original Score, alongside Iain Grandage, while fellow songwriter Tim Rogers received a nod in the same category for the stage production based on his first solo album released in 1999, What Rhymes With Cars & Girls.
Rogers received an additional nomination for the stage play in the category of Best Music Direction.
Meanwhile, some of the country's most popular music and arts festivals have been nominated for Best Contemporary Music Festival — Bluesfest, Laneway, VIVID and Womadelaide.
The Bluesfest event celebrated its 26th year in Byron Bay this April with a stellar lineup that included Zac Brown Band, Counting Crows, Ben Harper and Aussie favourite Paul Kelly, while Laneway boasted its biggest bill in its 11 year history — acts such as Royal Bloods, FKA twigs and Courtney Barnett all took part in the national festival.
High profile international music acts will also be included in this year's event, with the Best International Contemporary Concert gong up for grabs.
In the running for the award includes Brit act Ed Sheeran for his recent X World Tour, rock heavyweights Foo Fighters and their Sonic Highways World Tour which saw them out in Aus this past February, iconic group The Rolling Stones and their arena shows as part of the 14 On Fire tour and finally, the unique collaboration of Paul Simon and Sting who teamed up for a string of shows at the beginning of the year.
Australian comedy will again feature at the Helpmann Awards this year with the Best Comedy Perfomer category.
Veteran comic Judith Lucy has been nominated alongside Sydney triple j breakfast host Matt Okine, Nazeem Hussain, Ronny Chieng and Sam Simmons.
Simmons may be the early favourite to pick up the award after he recently took out the prestigious Barry Award at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival in April.
The 2015 Helpmann Awards will take place at Sydney's Capitol Theatre on Monday, 27 July and it will also be broadcasted live on Foxtel's newly launched channel, Foxtel Arts, from 7:30pm.
To attend the ceremony, tickets can be purchased via Ticketmaster and for a full look at all categories and nominations, head to the event website.
