The 2003 APRA Music Awards Awards Ceremony Confirmed For May 19th
In yet another year where Australian songwriters have triumphed at home and overseas, the Board of APRA (Australasian Performing Right Association) is proud to announce that it will honour songwriters and publishers at the 2003 APRA Music Awards in Sydney this May.
Music writers and publishers that have achieved outstanding success in their fields across 10 categories will be honoured before their peers at the 2003 APRA Music Awards to be held at Sydney’s Four Seasons Hotel on Monday May 19th. The awards ceremony will be hosted by the irrepressible Jonathan Biggins and will feature live performances and special guest presenters.
In 2002 the APRA Board introduced significant changes to the awards calendar. These changes included the staging of three music awards events throughout the year. Classical and screen music composers are now honoured separately giving more focus to each of these important genres.
The APRA Board also introduced two key new award categories to the APRA Music Awards which will continue for the 2003 event.
These exciting new awards are for MOST PERFORMED DANCE WORK which gives deserved recognition for dance music composition and the BREAKTHROUGH AWARD award which is given to a composer newcomer in any genre. These two category additions have been warmly embraced by the Australian music community.
Nominations and winners in each category are chosen either by the voting members of APRA (in excess of 13,000 eligible voters), members of the APRA Board or APRA based statistical analysis.
The winner of SONG OF THE YEAR award is voted for by APRA members of those songs written and released in the preceding calendar year. All songs written by an APRA member and released in the preceding calendar year are eligible for consideration. Previous winners have included songs by composers as rich and varied as Powderfinger, Neil Finn, Yothu Yindi, Tina Arena and last years winner Alex Lloyd for ‘Amazing’.
The prestigious SONGWRITER OF THE YEAR, TED ALBERT AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING SERVICES TO AUSTRALIAN MUSIC (previous recipients include Slim Dusty, Ian Meldrum, Harry Vanda and George Young and national youth radio network Triple J) and the new BREAKTHROUGH AWARD winners are decided by APRA’s Board of Writers and Publisher Directors.
The nominees for the 2003 APRA Music Awards will be officially announced on Wednesday April 30th.