Sounds Australia is an Australian organisation established to assist

Australian musicians Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Aus ...

become established overseas.

History

Formed in 2009, Sounds Australia began as an initiative of the

Australia Council for the Arts Creative Australia, formerly known as the Australia Council for the Arts and the Australia Council, is the country's official arts council, serving as an arts funding and advisory body for the Government of Australia. The council was announ ...

APRA AMCOS APRA AMCOS consists of Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) and Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society (AMCOS), both copyright management organisations or copyright collectives which jointly represent over 100,000 songwri ...

, and the

federal government A federation (also called a federal state) is an entity characterized by a political union, union of partially federated state, self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a #Federal governments, federal government (federalism) ...

. It has assisted artists such as

Flume A flume is a human-made channel for water, in the form of an open declined gravity chute whose walls are raised above the surrounding terrain, in contrast to a trench or ditch. Flumes are not to be confused with aqueducts, which are built to t ...

Chet Faker Nicholas James Murphy (born 23 June 1988), known professionally as Chet Faker, is an Australian singer and songwriter. In 2012, as Chet Faker, he issued an extended play, '' Thinking in Textures'', and signed to Downtown Records in the United ...

, Gossling, and

Courtney Barnett Courtney Melba Barnett (born 3 November 1987) is an Australian singer, songwriter, and musician. Known for her deadpan singing style and witty, rambling lyrics, she attracted attention with the release of her debut EP ''I've Got a Friend Calle ...

find greater impact outside of Australia. Initially Sounds Australia used funding to support musicians in attending showcase conference events in North America, the UK and Europe, such as

South by South West South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has continued growing in both s ...

(SXSW), and in their first ten years assisted approximately 1,600 Australian artists to attend over 70 events, in 23 countries. They have also led programs to support non-musicians, and in 2017 Sounds Australia received funding from the

Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) is the department of the Australian government responsible for foreign policy and international relations, development aid (under the name Australian Aid), consular services, overseas trad ...

to visit South America with a delegation of Australian music industry figures to determine opportunities for Australian music. In January 2020, publisher and live music promoter

Larry Heath Larry Heath is an Australian publisher, events organiser, and entrepreneur. He is the founder-owner of Heath Media, which publishes online magazine ''The AU Review'' and hosts the National Live Music Awards. Heath is associate producer at So ...

was appointed associate producer at Sounds Australia, at the same time as

Indigenous Indigenous may refer to: *Indigenous peoples *Indigenous (ecology) In biogeography, a native species is indigenous to a given region or ecosystem if its presence in that region is the result of only local natural evolution (though often populari ...

singer-songwriter and arts administrator Leah Flanagan joined the team as First Nations export producer. Heath had previously collaborated with the team at Sounds Australia, including co-presenting "Jet Lag Sessions" at a conference in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

from 2011 to 2013. Heath's first work at Sounds Australia was attending the

Folk Alliance International Folk Alliance International (previously the ''North American Folk Music and Dance Alliance'') is a non-profit organization that produces an annual conference that is the world's largest gathering of the folk music industry and community. Founde ...

New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

. Flanagan's role entails attending key international events such as SXSW,

The Great Escape Festival The Great Escape Festival is a four-day music festival held in Brighton and Hove, England every year in May. It is operated by MAMA Festivals and showcases new music from a variety of genres. The festival was founded in 2006 and hosts roughly ...

, Folk Alliance International, and

WOMEX WOMEX (short for Worldwide Music Expo) is an international world music support and development project based in Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany ...

, as well as establishing an international bursary program for Indigenous artists. Her first assignment in the role was attending the International Indigenous Music Summit in New Orleans. In March 2020, following the cancellation of SXSW, Sounds Australia organised a

live stream Livestreaming, live-streaming, or live streaming is the streaming of video or audio in real time or near real time. While often referred to simply as ''streaming'', the real-time nature of livestreaming differentiates it from other non- live ...

event featuring artists like Alex the Astronaut,

Kota Banks Jessica Mimi Porfiri (born 13 October 1994), who performs as Kota Banks, is an Australian pop singer-songwriter and musician. She signed to Nina Las Vegas's label, NLV Records, in May 2017, which released Banks' ten-track extended play, ''Priz ...

, and

Cable Ties A cable tie (also known as a hose tie, panduit, tie wrap, wire tie, zap-straps, or zip tie) is a type of fastener for holding items together, primarily electrical cables and wires. Because of their low cost, ease of use, and binding strength, ca ...

, but that too was cancelled due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. As the pandemic continued, in 2021 Sounds Australia presented a showcase at an online SXSW and assisted musicians to access exit permits, allowing acts like

Middle Kids Middle Kids are an Australian alternative indie rock band from Sydney. The group consists of lead vocalist and guitarist Hannah Joy, bass guitarist Tim Fitz, and drummer Harry Day. Since forming in 2016, the band has released their eponymous d ...

and

Tame Impala Tame Impala is the psychedelic music project of Australian singer and multi-instrumentalist Kevin Parker (musician), Kevin Parker. In the recording studio, Parker writes, records, performs, and produces all of the project's music. As a touring a ...

to leave Australia to fulfil touring obligations overseas.

Funding

In 2015 the government made changes to their funding which led to uncertainty over the organisation's future, with their funding due to run out on December 31, 2016. In November 2016 Sounds Australia announced the government had committed to fund them for the next four years, with funding also contributed by other organisations. They received further funding from

ARIA In music, an aria (, ; : , ; ''arias'' in common usage; diminutive form: arietta, ; : ariette; in English simply air (music), air) is a self-contained piece for one voice, with or without instrument (music), instrumental or orchestral accompan ...

in 2020.

Footnotes

References

External links

* {{Official website Music organisations based in Australia 2009 establishments in Australia Organisations based in Sydney