Updates: Soundtracks at the Opera House, a Frog Detective vinyl, and the Classic 100
All that plus an exciting new award for videogame music in Australia.
Screen Music Awards 2024
In very exciting news, APRA and the Australian Guild of Screen Composers announced the 2024 Screen Music Awards - which contains a category for Best Music for a Video Game or Other Interactive Media for the very first time.
I’m incredibly pleased by this news. There are not many awards that games composers can win in Australia (or indeed, internationally), and it is beyond time that the Screen Music Awards specifically called out game music. To me this is really important because it is the only games music award in the country that is a) judged exclusively by composers and in the context of screen music and b) that can be entered by a composer alone (as opposed to games industry awards which are generally submitted by a developer or studio).
The Games sub-committee of the AGSC (which I am chair of) did a fair amount of work behind the scenes to get this award up, and I’m exceptionally pleased with how it’s all turning out. It will be a moment of significant pride to see games composers up there this year with our local film and tv luminaries.
If you’re a games composer in Australia you simply must enter your work this year. If you know a games composer in Australia you simply must tell them to enter their work this year.
Art of the Score concerts: Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide
I recently had the absolute pleasure of co-hosting a run of concerts of the film music of John Williams at the Sydney Opera House with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Sydney Philharmonia Choirs, as part of our Art of the Score series. I think these were probably the best run of shows we’ve done so far, so if you were there, thank you! Hearing ‘Duel of the Fates’ with something like 180 singers live was absolutely astonishing.
I made a little TikTok of some behind the scenes of it all:
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We still have upcoming concerts this year with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and the Music of Hans Zimmer in July (sold out, unfortunately), and the just-announced ‘John Williams: Sounds of Cinema’ show with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in October. The Williams concert is a totally different setlist to anything we’ve done before with some real rarities and fan favourites. I’m personally hugely looking forward to hearing Williams’ music from The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) live, which I haven’t heard before.
Finally, a Frog Detective vinyl
Ever since iam8bit and I worked together to make the absolutely wonderful (and hilarious, if a vinyl can be hilarious?) vinyl for Untitled Goose Game, I’ve been hoping to do something for the music of the Frog Detective series with them.
That opportunity has finally come around, and we’ve just announced the vinyl release of music for the Frog Detective series, shipping Q4 this year. It’s got absolutely gorgeous album art from Natalie Andrewson, and a silly little liner note essay insert from me. I specially curated the music on this release to be the best listening experience possible from all three Frog Detective games. I think it’s going to be great.
ABC Classic 100 TV broadcast: 7:30pm 29 June
The ABC Classic 100 is one of my favourite times of year, and this year was no exception with the ‘Feel Good’ themed countdown.
I was lucky enough to write an article about how data from the counts illustrates the changing audience for classical music, which ended up on the ABC news homepage during the launch.
I was also absolutely thrilled to go to the taping of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s Classic 100 show last night at Hamer Hall, which will be broadcast on ABC TV and iView on Sat 29 June, 7:30pm. My dear friend Megan Burslem co-hosted with the superstar Jeremy Fernandez, with plenty of great cameos from the whole ABC Classic team (yours truly included). You’ll have to tune in on Saturday to see what I’m talking about, but as a fairly predictable hint it involves film music.
Swinburne students curate ACMI Cinema 3
In the Department of Media and Communication at Swinburne, one of our star annual student projects is ‘Movie Mogul’, where students work with ACMI to curate seasons of films for their streaming service, Cinema 3.
This year the winners outdid themselves, creating a season of wrestling-themed films that I know has already been incredibly popular. They also created an introductory video from Australian wrestling legend KrackerJac, which has to be seen to be believed: