The Australian Music Centre (AMC), formerly known briefly as Sounds Australian, is a national organisation promoting and supporting

art music Art music (alternatively called classical music, cultivated music, serious music, and canonic music) is music considered to be of high phonoaesthetic value. It typically implies advanced structural and theoretical considerationsJacques Siron, ...

in Australia, founded in 1974. It co-hosts the

Art Music Awards The APRA Music Awards in Australia are annual awards to celebrate excellence in contemporary music, which honour the skills of member composers, songwriters, and publishers who have achieved outstanding success in sales and airplay performan ...

along with

APRA AMCOS APRA AMCOS consists of Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) and Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society (AMCOS), both copyright management organisations or copyright collectives which jointly represent over 100,000 songwr ...

, and publishes ''Resonate Magazine''.

Description

AMC provides advocacy, representation, and publishing services as well as career support and professional development programmes. Initially focussed on contemporary classical music, its purview has expanded to experimental music, sound art, contemporary jazz, and improvisatory music. In 1990 it briefly changed its name to Sounds Australian. The AMC is the Australian national section of

ISCM The International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) is a music organization that promotes contemporary classical music. The organization was established in Salzburg in 1922 as Internationale Gesellschaft für Neue Musik (IGNM) following the ...

and IAMIC. The Centre's collection includes a repository of Australian scores, recordings and teaching kits that numbered 13,000 items by 660 creators in 2017.

Governance

The AMC was established in 1974 by its inaugural director,

James Murdoch James Rupert Jacob Murdoch (born 13 December 1972) is a British-American businessman, the younger son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, and was the chief executive officer (CEO) of 21st Century Fox from 2015 to 2019. He was the chairman and CEO fo ...

. For 32 years its CEO was John Davis, who left in 2021. In May 2021, he was succeeded by Catherine Haridy, who had worked in A&R for

Mushroom Records Mushroom Records was an Australian flagship record label, founded in 1972 in Melbourne. It published and distributed many successful Australian artists and expanded internationally, until it was merged with Festival Records in 1998. Festival Mu ...

and

Warner Music Australia Warner Music Australia Pty Limited (WMA) is the Australian division of the Warner Music Group. WMA also distributes in New Zealand. History In 1969, Warner Bros. Records branched out and WEA was born. The first country in which it was estab ...

and founded her own artist management company in 2006.

Marshall McGuire Marshall McGuire (born 1965) is an Australian harpist, teacher, conductor and musical administrator. He has been described as the world's greatest champion of new music for the harp. Biography McGuire was born in Melbourne in 1965. His interest ...

was appointed Chair of the Board in 2021.

Art Music Awards

The AMC co-hosts the

along with

, which acknowledges excellence among Australian composers, performers and educators in the genres of contemporary classical music, jazz, improvisation, sound art and experimental music. The Art Music Awards were first held in 1988 under the banner 'The Sounds Australian Awards'.

Notable represented artists

The Australian Music Centre represents Australian composers, improvisers and sound artists. Some notable represented artists include: *

Ross Edwards Ross Edwards (born 1 December 1942) is a former Australian cricketer. Edwards played in 20 Test matches for Australia, playing against England, West Indies and Pakistan. He also played in nine One Day Internationals including the 1975 Crick ...

Mary Finsterer Mary Finsterer (born 25 August 1962) is an Australian composer and academic. Life Finsterer was born in Canberra in 1962; her siblings are the actors Anni Finsterer and Jack Finsterer. She graduated in 1987 with a Bachelor of Music degree fro ...

Peggy Glanville-Hicks Peggy Winsome Glanville-Hicks (29 December 191225 June 1990) was an Australian composer and music critic. Biography Peggy Glanville Hicks, born in Melbourne, first studied composition with Fritz Hart at the Albert Street Conservatorium in M ...

Brenda Gifford Brenda Gifford (born 1968) is a Yuin The Yuin nation, also spelt Djuwin, is a group of Australian Aboriginal peoples from the South Coast of New South Wales. All Yuin people share ancestors who spoke, as their first language, one or more ...

Helen Gifford Helen Margaret Gifford OAM (born 5 September 1935) is an Australian composer. On Australia Day (26 January) 1996 she was appointed to the Medal of the Order of Australia, "in recognition of service to music as a composer". At the APRA Music A ...

Percy Grainger Percy Aldridge Grainger (born George Percy Grainger; 8 July 188220 February 1961) was an Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist who lived in the United States from 1914 and became an American citizen in 1918. In the course of a long an ...

* Cat Hope *

Elena Kats-Chernin Elena Davidovna Kats-Chernin (born 4 November 1957) is a Soviet-born Australian pianist and composer, best known for her ballet ''Wild Swans''. Early life and career Elena Kats-Chernin was born in Tashkent (now the capital of independent Uzbek ...

* Don Kay *

Bryony Marks Bryony Marks is an Australian composer of film scores and theatre music, for which she has won several awards and been nominated for many others. Among her television credits is ''Please Like Me'' and ''Barracuda'', and films include '' Berlin S ...

References

External links

*
''Resonate Magazine''
{{Authority control Australian music industry Music organisations based in Australia