Professional Development Awards 2017

Held every two years, the APRA Professional Development Awards aim to create serious opportunities for emerging songwriters and composers in the following categories:

• Popular Contemporary (three awards are given in this category including Pop, Rock, Blues, Folk, Hip Hop and R&B);
• Country
• Jazz
• Classical
• Film & Television
• Dance/Electronic
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander

There's a total prize pool of around $140,000 that will be shared by the nine winners.

Once again in 2017, the Smugglers of Light initiative will form part of the PDAs. Now in its second year, this will provide a promising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander music or media practitioner a grant of $12,000. The Smugglers of Light foundation has been set up in memory of Eli Westlake aged 21, who was tragically killed in Sydney on 7 June 2008.

APRA AMCOS works with a variety of organisations to process Professional Development Award applications. These organisations are selected based on their expertise and involvement with the music industry, and will review each application before we provide a shortlist to our judges.

Every applicant must choose one organisation to assess their application.

There are both national and state/territory based organisations, so you do not have to select an organisation based on your location. Choose the organisation that you think will best be able to assess your music and application, noting that some organisations will only be able to assess specific categories. These are outlined below.

All partner organisations will use the same scoring criteria.

PDAs 2017 PARTNER ORGANISATIONS

• 4ZZZ (Brisbane based community radio station)

• Association of Artist Managers (Peak body representing artist managers in Australia)
• Association of Independent Record Labels (Peak body representing Australian owned record labels and independent artists based in Australia)
• Australian Guild of Screen Composers (National association for professional screen composers)
  *Only assessing Film and TV - Film and TV applications must choose the AGSC*
• Australian Music Centre (National organisation dedicated to promoting and supporting art music)
  *Only assessing Classical and Jazz - Classical applications must choose the AMC*
• Country Music Association of Australia (National organisation representing the Australian country music industry)
  *Only assessing Country*
• FBi Radio (Sydney based community radio station)
• Fresh FM (Adelaide based community radio station)
  *Only assessing Dance/Electronic*
• Gadigal Information Service (Leading Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts/media hub based in Sydney. Home of Koori Radio)
• Goolarri Media (Broome based company offering radio, TV, events, music, training and new media services)
• Multicultural Arts Victoria (Body supporting the development and promotion of diverse art, heritage and culture)
• MusicNT (Peak body for contemporary music in the Northern Territory)
• Music SA (Peak body for music in South Australia)
• Music Tasmania (Peak industry body representing Tasmania’s music community)
• Music Victoria (Peak body for contemporary music in Victoria)
• Music NSW (Peak body for contemporary music in New South Wales)
• PBS FM (Melbourne based community radio station)
• RRR (Melbourne based community radio station)
• RTR FM (Perth based community radio station)
• Songlines (Victoria’s peak Aboriginal music body)
  *Only assessing Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander*
• QMusic (Queensland’s music industry development association)
• Talent Development Project (Youth music and entertainment training program)
• The Push (Victoria based youth music organisation)

• West Australian Music (Peak body for contemporary music in WA)
  

Partner organisations will assess applications, and assign each a score out of 100. Applications will then be ranked, and a shortlist will be supplied by each partner organisation.

Shortlisted nominations are then considered by judging panels in each category.

The 2017 judging panel is comprised of composers, songwriters, publishers, broadcasters, producers and educators as listed below: