Resonate Magazine | Australian Music Centre

Image: Jazz pianist & composer Matthew Sheens  
© James Rush

The Australia Council for the Arts has granted a substantial sum of close to $100,000 for a two-year program of market development for Australian jazz in Europe, delivered in partnership by the Australian Music Centre and SOUNDS AUSTRALIA. The project includes enhancing the Australian presence at Jazzahead in Bremen, and exploiting the AMC's membership of the European Jazz Network.

Other grants from the most recent round of funding by the Australia Council include $50K for staged productions of new chamber operas composed by Bree van Reyk, Josephine Macken, Peggy Polias and Georgia Scott (participants in the Sydney Conservatorium's Composing Women program) for performance by the Sydney Chamber Opera at Carriageworks in early 2020; funding for new works by the AMC-represented pianist and composer Matthew Sheens (for the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra), and Erkki Veltheim and Andrea Keller (for the Adelaide Festival).

New work grants also went to Anthea Caddy and the New York-based bassist Linda Oh. Multi-artform grant recipients this time around included Jason Sweeney and The Vampires jazz ensemble.

Bunaba Cultural Enterprises in WA received $45k to support rehearsal and presentations, in Perth and Sydney, of Jandamarra: Sing for the Country, a dramatic cantata by Steve Hawke and Paul Stanhope. Successful organisations also included Chamber Made, Four Winds, Melbourne Jazz Co-op, Aphids and the Next Wave Festival.

> More details about these grants and a full list of recipients in all art forms, please see the 'Awarded grants' on the Australia Council website.

> Read also media release 'First nations artists and ambitious projects shine in highly competitive Australia Council grants round' (11 January 2019)