Resonate Magazine | Australian Music Centre

Image: Lily Shearer (co-artistic director, Moogahlin Performing Arts) in conversation with composer and ICI participant Brenda Gifford, August 2017  
© Eora College

The AMC is very pleased to announce that the AMPlify Indigenous Composer Initiative continues in 2018 with five participating artists - Rhyan Clapham, Brenda Gifford, Tim Gray, Troy Russell and Elizabeth Sheppard - and Ensemble Offspring working together in a series of workshops over the course of the year, leading up to a recording period and two final concerts, in Canberra and Sydney, in November 2018.

All participating composers were involved in the pilot stage of the program in 2016-2017. A new mentor Kim Cunio will join founder and artistic director of the Initiative, Chris Sainsbury, while last year's mentor Kevin Hunt will remain in an advisory capacity. The participants have an opportunity to further develop their skills and work on their compositions, with individual guidance from program facilitators and artists from Ensemble Offspring. Focus instruments this time around are piano (Roland Peelman), clarinets (Jason Noble), violin (Anna McMichael), voice (Sonya Hollowell).

The main partners in 2018 are Moogahlin Performing Arts and Ensemble Offspring with their artistic director Claire Edwardes, with support from the ANU School of Music, Eora College, AMC and APRA AMCOS.

AMPlify ICI was launched In 2016, with the aim of supporting emerging Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander composers in new music and jazz. A part of the AMPlify framework of artist development programs, the pilot stage of the Initiative took place in NSW and ACT over 2016 and 2017.

> Find out more about participating composers and the aims of the program