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Dame Joan Sutherland - 2024 Honour Roll inductee

Dame Joan Sutherland Set for Posthumous AWMAs Honour

Dame Joan Sutherland, the legendary, late soprano, will be posthumously inducted into the Australian Women in Music Awards’ Honour Roll next month, The Music Network can exclusively reveal.

Sutherland will be one of two honourees celebrated during the 2024 AWMAs, presented Wednesday, Oct. 2 at Fortitude Music Hall in Meanjin/Brisbane.

Executive Leader Game Changer award

AWMA and ARIA – Inaugural Executive Leader Game Changer Award 

Breaking news – Australian Women in Music Awards (AWMA) and Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) have announced the inaugural Executive Leader Game Changer Award will be presented at the 2023 Australian Women in Music Awards on Wednesday, 27 September at the Tivoli in Brisbane.

The new award is designed to shine a light on music industry leaders who are creating significant and positive change to bring about equality for women and non-binary people in the Australian music industry, by celebrating the achievements of a CEO, CFO, COO, CMO, MD, GM or senior executive each year.

Nominations for the award open at 9am Tuesday, 4 April and close 26 April.

awma 2022

AWMA announces Inaugural First Nations Women’s Hip Hop Showcase – LOVE FOR MY SISTERS

Australian Women in Music Awards will host the inaugural First Nations Women’s Hip Hop Showcase LOVE FOR MY SISTERS programmed as part of this year’s Conference Program, with a belting line-up of artists curated by Cairns-based First Nations powerhouse Hip Hop artist and MC Dizzy Doolan.
awma 2022

2022 Australian Women in Music Awards winners announced

The 2022 AWMAs will be broadcast on May 21 for the first time on ABC TV with DAME OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN AC DBE inducted into the AWMA Honour Role alongside music legends Helen Reddy and Judith Durham AO.

The announcement was celebrated with a special tribute for Olivia performed by Tina Arena who also presented the inaugural SPECIAL IMPACT AWARD, in her name, to DINA BASSILE for her pioneering work creating disability access for live music and arts events.

Elena Kats Chernin

Elena-Kats Chernin composes New Work for AWMA

Australian Women in Music Awards (AWMA) finalist and one of Australia’s most prolific and acclaimed contemporary composers Elena Kats-Chernin has created a new work – Jubilissima – announced today on International Women’s Day to be the celebratory feature performance at the Awards in May.
Music Cities Award

Australian Women in Music Awards chosen as Global Finalists in 2021 Music Cities Awards

In a major coup for the Australian music industry and host city Brisbane, Australian Women in Music Awards has been announced overnight as a global finalist in the 2021 Music Cities Awards.
Sony Denis Handlin

The toxic regime of Denis Handlin.

When many of Australia’s most famous singers clutched ARIA awards and stepped up to the podium there was one man whose praises they would sing.

Denis Handlin.

As Sony Music chief executive, chairman of the ARIA board, an Officer of the Order of Australia, he was one of the most powerful men in Australian music. But inside Sony Music, he ruled with fear and intimidation…

 

Image from article: Getty Images: Don Arnold/WireImage
dennis handlin sony music

SONY Music was warned about workplace culture under Denis Handlin

The global Sony Music company was warned more than 20 years ago of serious complaints about the workplace culture at its Australian label overseen by its now sacked CEO Denis Handlin…
sony music office front signage

SONY Music allegations of toxic work culture

Revealed: multiple allegations of toxic culture at Sony Music Australia as CEO Denis Handlin leaves…
workplace sexual harassment dr jeff crabtree report

Women call for an end to toxic culture in the Australian music industry

A 2021 report by Dr Jeff Crabtree outlines workplace harassment in the Contemporary Music Industries of Australia and New Zealand.

roadies left to rot on tour

Changing the record

Ngati Kahungunu woman and award-winning producer Vicki Gordon has always had an enduring commitment to gender and cultural equality in the Australian music industry.

Publication: Women’s Network, December 2020. Photo credits Wendy McDougall & Peter Collie
roadies left to rot on tour

The music industry looks fun, exciting and glamorous. On the inside, the truth is more grim!

And so goes one of dozens of accounts of inappropriate behaviour, bullying, rape, assault and more that are rightly sending shivers through the Australian music industry, writes Nathanael Cooper
Image credit: Lorde@Arena Krists Luhaers, Wikimedia Commons
roadies left to rot on tour

‘You’re left to rot if you speak up’: the abuse faced by female roadies

For years, women who work on music tours have been patronised, denigrated and abused. But as the industry takes stock during the pandemic, change is hopefully coming. Written by The Guardian Journalist, Tara Joshi.
Image credit: ‘To be part of a touring crew, you give up so much, just to be taken advantage of’: roadie Laura Nagtegaal.

Reimagining the Dinosaur: Opera After COVID-19

In a post-coronavirus world, opera has a unique opportunity to redress and re-birth for lasting change.

Oprah Winfrey backs Tina Arena’s fight against ‘ageism’ in the music industry

Not yet 48 hours in the country, longstanding women’s rights activist Oprah Winfrey has backed Tina Arena’s fight against “ageism” in the music industry.

Beyond The ‘Dead White Dudes’

How to solve the gender problem in Australian classical music.

One in three Australian composers are women but they continue to be overlooked. Now the industry is joining an international call to arms.

Sexism in Australia’s music industry still rife, but change is coming

For all their successes, the four talented musicians of alt-country band All Our Exes Live In Texas share experiences common to many women in the Australian music industry — they have endured sexism on an almost daily basis.

Camp Cope on speaking out and beating the backlash

Sarah Thompson clicks her fingers, as if to say, snap out of it. We’re behind the shopfront of Poison City Records, past the walls of vinyl, merchandise and skateboards, in a cluttered back room that serves as the label’s HQ.

The changing face of the Australian music industry

Music Producer and Manager Vicki Gordon has been named as one of the Australian Financial Review’s (AFR) 100 Women of Influence.

Classical music is still sidelining women, new research shows

Research shows that some of the world’s top orchestras will be devoting much more time to music written by men and performed by men this season.

Take note – why do women composers still take up less musical space?

Sound and Music set itself an ambitious target – gender parity by 2020. How’s it doing?

A recent history of sexism in the Australian music industry

In honour of International Women’s Day, we’ve decided to take a look back at some of the more memorable industry horror stories of recent times, with the hopes that we can leave these sorts of incidents and attitudes behind in the years to come.

How #MeToo shows that we need to acknowledge sexism in the music industry too

The sexual harassment recently uncovered in Hollywood is sadly not confined to the world of film.

In a notoriously sexist art form, Australian women composers are making their voices heard

Classical music has traditionally not been a welcoming environment for women composers. Opera Australia’s 2019 season, for instance, features just one work by a female composer, Elena Kats-Chernin.

An End To On Stage Victimhood

They are stabbed, suffocated, abandoned, or required to sacrifice themselves. All too often, the female protagonists of operas come to grisly ends for the delectation — or, equally disturbingly, for the ​edification — of their audiences.