$60,000
The Melbourne Prize for Music 2016 will be awarded to a Victorian musician, or group, whose work has made an outstanding contribution to Australian music and has enriched cultural and public life.
ALL music genres are eligible for this Prize.
Supported by The Vera Moore Foundation
David Bridie
David Bridie has enjoyed a remarkably versatile career as one of Australia’s most prolific and innovative contemporary musicians. David rose to prominence in 1983 as a uniquely Australian pianist, vocalist and songwriter in the critically acclaimed band Not Drowning, Waving. A decade and nine albums later, David formed the ARIA awardwinning musical outfit, My Friend the Chocolate Cake.
David has also enjoyed a venerable solo career and has firmly established himself over the last thirty years as a producer (Christine Anu, Archie Roach, George Telek), musical theatre director (SING SING, Ulumbarra - Gather Together) and composer; having scored the soundtracks for over 100 international and Australian films, television series and documentaries, including Proof, In a Savage Land, Satellite Boy, Putuparri and the Rainmakers and The Straits.
Biography
One of the world’s foremost producers of Melanesian music, David co-established a not-for-profit music label, the Wantok Musik Foundation, which aims to generate and foster cultural exchanges between Indigenous Australia and Melanesia by recording, releasing and promoting music from the region. Through his tireless work with the Wantok Musik Foundation, David endeavours to support the preservation of language through song.
Joe Camilleri
Joe Camilleri has led two of Australia’s most successful touring bands: Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons in the 70s and The Black Sorrows from the 80s onwards. The Sorrows have released 20 albums and sold over two million copies worldwide.
Camilleri’s passion for music continues with side projects The Revelators and Bakelite Radio and his partnership in the Jazzhead label. He is highly regarded as a producer for his work on his own records plus albums for Paul Kelly, Tiddas, Renee Geyer and more.
Over 50 years on Joe Camilleri has proven that he is a man who loves and lives music.
Biography
Joe Camilleri, writer of milestone songs Shape I’m In and Chained to the Wheel, has given his life to music in Australia. Leader of two of our most successful bands, Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons and The Black Sorrows, Joe’s music has become part of Australian music culture. Joe was inducted with The Falcons into The ARIA Hall of Fame in 2007 and is currently touring his 48th album.
Kutcha Edwards – Winner
Kutcha has been combining activism and songwriting since 1991, producing several band and four solo albums including his latest release Beneath the Surface.
He has staged two theatre productions, Songlines of a Mutti Mutti Man and yuyukatha, and has received multiple awards including the 2016 NIMA Hall of Fame. Fusing soulful music and a rich, powerful voice with his personal story, Kutcha’s songs reflect on life as an Aboriginal man in white Australia. His deep and rhythmic tones are that of a storyteller whose inspiring songs are full of passion and spirit that evoke a universal connection.
Biography
Award winning singer/songwriter Kutcha Edwards has an extensive body of work including several solo albums, significant collaborative ventures, and music theatre productions. A pivotal member of the Aboriginal community and a proud Mutti Mutti man, his life’s work is the continuum of his ancestral Songline.
Liza Lim
Liza Lim is one of Australia’s leading composers, published by the prestigious Casa Ricordi/ Universal Music label with a catalogue of 75 works.
Ecstatic Architecture commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic for the inaugural season of the Walt Disney Concert Hall received the Paul Lowin Award. Her operas The Oresteia, Moon Spirit Feasting and The Navigator premiered at the Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane Festivals, and subsequently toured to high profile seasons in Berlin, Zurich, Paris, Tokyo and Moscow. The American critic Alex Ross (The Rest is Noise) includes Lim’s Tongue of the Invisible in his pick of the top 10 pieces of the 21st Century.
Biography
Liza Lim is a composer whose unique intercultural music draws on a wide range of Asian, Indigenous and European sources. Operas and orchestral works explore themes of ecology, language, ritual and ecstatic states. An influential educator, she is Professor of Composition at the University of Huddersfield, UK and lives in Melbourne.
Adalita Srsen
In Adalita’s 23 year career our rock icon has released unforgettable compositions with her band ‘Magic Dirt’, and as an acclaimed solo artist: her music has appeared in films, soundtracks and advertisements, she’s been nominated for 7 ARIA awards, won the Australian Independent Record Association Album of the Year for her self-titled debut album, was a finalist for the Australian Music Prize and was The Age Music Victoria Female Artist of the Year in 2013.
She’s also played for the Dalai Lama, acted as an all-important mentor for young Victorian artists as well as appearing as a guest speaker at numerous conferences around Australia.
Biography
Modern Australian rock icon Adalita is best known as front woman for Australian indie rock band Magic Dirt. In 2011 Adalita released her debut self-titled solo album garnering rave reviews and winning the 2011 AIR Award for Best Independent Release as well as being shortlisted for the 2012 AMP music prize. She is currently working on her 3rd solo album.