2022 Screen Music Awards winners announced

A celebratory night for dual winners Caitlin Yeo, William Barton, Richard Tognetti and Piers Burbrook de Vere.

APRA AMCOS and the Australian Guild of Screen Composers (AGSC) are honoured to announce the music creators who have taken out top honours at the 2022 Screen Music Awards. The composers are a mix of established and first-time winners whose music has brought out the gold to create emotional impact across small and large screens.

In her first outing as a screen awards nominee Salliana Seven Campbell has taken home the Feature Film Score of the Year for her original music for The Drover’s Wife The Legend of Molly Johnson (written, directed and starred in by Leah Purcell). The multi-instrumentalist and arranger used fiddles, banjos, mandolins, piano and electric guitars to create a raw soundtrack to match the film’s powerful energy.

Caitlin Yeo has scored two wins for her work on New Gold Mountain, the revisionist western set in the gold mining days in 1857 Ballarat, largely from the perspective of the Chinese gold miners. Featuring a blend of strings, traditional Chinese instruments, a mixture of percussion, and even a gold pan as a percussive instrument, Caitlin received the awards for Best Television Theme and Best Music for a Mini-Series or Telemovie.

Winning their first ever Screen Music Awards are didgeridoo player and composer William Barton and Australian Chamber Orchestra Artistic Director Richard Tognetti, who along with Piers Burbrook de Vere have taken out Best Soundtrack Album for motion picture River and Best Original Song Composed for the Screen with Spirit Voice of the Enchanted Waters from River.

The musical partnership of Antony Partos and Matteo Zingales has again impressed the panel of judges with their screen chemistry, taking home Best Music for a Television Series or Serial for their collaboration on Total Control, the acclaimed political drama series starring Deborah Mailman and Rachel Griffiths.

Composer Hylton Mowday has taken out Best Music for a Documentary for the Emmy Award-winning Australian doco Puff: Wonders of the Reef. Netflix’s first original Australian documentary which won the Emmy for Outstanding Nature Documentary, follows a baby puffer fish through the Great Barrier Reef as he learns to survive and thrive through his first year of life.

Accomplished screen composer Nerida Tyson-Chew has scored the 2022 award for Best Music for Children’s Programming for The Deep, an animated children’s series which has been screened in over 200 countries. The award for Best Music for a Short Film goes to screen composer Wil Hughes who wins his first award for Still Life. Also scoring his first Screen Music Award is Lance Gurisik who composed the Best Music for an Advertisement for Destination NSW: Feel New.

Taking out the Most Performed categories are Adam Gock and Dinesh Wicks, whose collaborations on MasterChef, Anh’s Brush with Fame and Beauty and the Geek Australia sees them named Most Performed Screen Composer in Australia, an award they have won for the ninth time. Record breaking screen composer Neil Sutherland is the Most Performed Screen Composer – Overseas, now for an incredible 15^th consecutive year for his work on Border Security, MythBusters and Bondi Vet.

Revered composer Nigel Westlake has received the Distinguished Services to the Australian Screen Award for his body of work across film and television. His long-time collaborator, the director, producer, and screen writer Robert Connolly was on hand to present the honour.

The 2022 Screen Music Awards were co-hosted Akina Edmonds, Anne Edmonds and Aaron Pedersen and featured musical performances of the Feature Film Score of the Year nominated pieces led by Musical Director Jessica Wells. Two-time winner William Barton performed How We Feel from the River soundtrack. To close the ceremony Fred Leone and gospel vocal ensemble Gospo (accompanied by William Barton on didgeridoo and the Screen Awards Orchestra) paid a special musical tribute to the late Uncle Jack Charles and Uncle Archie Roach with a rendition of Song to Sing, composed by Archie Roach.

APRA AMCOS and the AGSC would like to congratulate all the winners of the 2022 Screen Music Awards.