APRA Announces 2025 Art Music Fund Recipients

APRA AMCOS has revealed the 11 recipients of the 2025 Art Music Fund this week.

The program funds a total of AU$82,500 for 11 composers – nine from Australia and two from Aotearoa New Zealand – “to create commissioned work with the intention of ensuring a long artistic life for the work and its composer.”

This year’s Australian recipients include Biddy Connor, Cayn Borthwick, Katy Abbott, Leah Curtis, Mace Francis, Megan Clune, Phoebe Bognar, Rafael Karlen and Thomas Meadowcroft, as well as Dylan Lardelli and Tatiana Riabinkina from New Zealand.

“The calibre of entries for this year’s Art Music Fund was incredible, and we’re thrilled to be able to announce such an impressive line-up of recipients for 2025,” Chris O’Neill, Director of Creative Programs at APRA AMCOS, said.

“The Fund is a vital opportunity for established composers to get their works commissioned on a large scale and create longevity and exposure for a long time to come.”

One of the unique works selected this year includes Melbourne-based composer, performer and arranger, Biddy Connor’s “Song to the Cell”, which transforms an IV machine into an instrument.

“The Art Music Fund is crucial because it champions ambitious, innovative and often genre-defying contemporary music that might otherwise lack dedicated backing,” Connor said.

“It allows composers to take creative risks and develop original and artistic works. Without this support, many significant projects in art music would simply not be unrealised.”

Meanwhile, New Zealand’s Lardelli’s work will be written for Swiss group Ensemble Mondrian and composed for violin, viola, cello and electronics.

“This grant will provide me with invaluable space to reflect on my artistic concerns, undertake points of research and create my work uninterrupted,” he said.

“It will permit me to engage with the fine performers involved in interpreting my work, allowing for a score that is idiomatic while still containing the elements of exploration that I value.”

Originally launched in 2016, the Art Music Fund has since provided over half a million dollars in funding to over 100 projects. Previous winners include Anna Liebzeit, Cat Hope, Christine Pan, Dominik Karski, Erkki Veltheim, Liza Lim, Mindy Meng Wang, Monica Lim and Nadia Freeman.

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