Festival director honoured at 23rd ACT Arts Awards

By Helen Musa

The 2013 Citynews Artist of the Year award has gone to the director of the Canberra International Music Festival, Christopher Latham, it was announced at the 23rd ACT Arts Awards took place on Tuesday, November 26  at the Canberra Museum and Gallery.

Hosted by the Canberra Critics’ Circle, with Peter Robinson as MC,  the evening also saw the announcement of the Canberra Artist of the Year, judged at the Plenary session of the Critics’ Circle and sponsored by Citynews.

 

2013 Citynews Artist of the Year Christopher Latham

 

This year the Artist of the Year was musical director Christopher Latham, honoured,  the judges wrote,  “for his visionary directing of the Canberra International Music Festival, particularly for his extraordinary ability to identify the archetypal features of Canberra’s design and lifestyle, then to construct a festival program that complements those qualities and broadens the audience appeal.  For fully engaging young and emerging music performers in the Festival program, enabling them to progress their careers by working in collaboration with respected composers and performers.”

Mr Latham said, on learning of  the award, “I am deeply moved by this award and would like to publicly thank my staff, board and especially Barbara Blackman, for their contributions and support over the last 5 years. We all share in this acknowledgement.”

The 2013 Canberra Critics’ Circle awards went to: filmmaker Clare Young; writers Lesley Lebkowicz, Irma Gold and Robert Macklin; the Scissors Paper Pen collective; dance artists Elizabeth Cameron Dalman and Liz Lea; Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds by SUPA Productions; musical theatre artists Dave Smith and Anne Somes;  musicians Adam Cook, Leisa Keen, Michael Sollis, Christopher Latham, Bradley Kunda and Matt Withers; The Musical Offering initiative; composer Sandra France and librettist Helen Nourse; visual artists Valerie Kirk Anita McIntyre, G W Bot and Wendy Teakel, Jenni Kemarre Martiniello, Eleanor Gates-Stuart, Jo Hollier, Luna Ryan and Jock Puautjimi; Canberra Contemporary Art Space; theatre artists Chrissie Shaw, Jenna Roberts and Duncan Ley; the productions The Book of Everything by REP and Pea! by serious theatre.

The Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA) Green Room Awards were presented by ACT Branch Secretary Michael White.

The MEAA Green Room Performer of the Year Award went to  Chrissie Shaw “for her creative tenacity in consistently producing imaginative work for herself and her peers culminating this year in writing and performing in the wonderful “Madame Bijou” at the Street Theatre.”

The MEAA Peer Recognition Award went to Peter Matheson, “in recognition of his expertise with and development of Canberra based playwrights through his dramaturgical work with the Hive and Made In Canberra programs at the Street Theatre.”

2013 Canberra Critics’ Circle awards: full citations

Film

For Bottom of the Lake, a full-length behind-the-scenes documentary that followed filmmaker Jane Campion and writer Gerard Lee on a shoot. The film is a tribute to Young’s observational skills, craft and integrity.

Clare Young

Dance

For her initiatives in bringing a range of dance events to Canberra and thus giving us an appreciation of the broad context in which dance operates. In particular for her input into the DANScience Festival – public lectures and films with CSIRO Discovery – and for her development of GOLD, which has opened dance into galleries and public spaces and given opportunities for professional choreographers to create for these occasions.

Liz Lea

Dance

For her adventurous collaborations, through the Mirramu Dance Company, with indigenous dancers, extending and exploring the sharing of their stories through contemporary dance, as exampled in “Morning Star”.

Elizabeth Cameron Dalman

Writing

For The Petrov Poems, published by Pitt Street Poetry, a thoroughly researched yet original and sensitive book of poetry that imagines the unseen, human story of the figures at the heart of the Cold War spy incident.

Lesley Lebkowicz

 Writing

For The Invisible Thread, published by Halstead Press, 75 works in non-fiction, fiction, history and short story form by writers with a Canberra association. With its broad historical sweep over the 100 years of Canberra’s official life, this was an exemplary Centenary of Canberra project.

Irma Gold

Writing

For a robust program of events supporting writers under the age of 35, including its bi-monthly blog-site residency, bimonthly storytelling, “Fancy-Pants” book club and wordsmiths ‘meet-ups.’

The Scissors Paper Pen collective

Writing

For “Dark Paradise—Norfolk Island—Isolation, Savagery, Mystery and Murder,” published by Hatchette Australia, a racy, provocative history revealing a story too-little known.
Robert Macklin

Visual Arts

For its significant and varied year long program of curated exhibitions that responded, with insight, humour and intelligence, to the seven themes of the Canberra Centenary, showing the work of numerous, local, contemporary artists in fresh and often surprising combinations.

Canberra Contemporary Art Space

Visual Arts

For their expression of landscape and the poetics of place through ceramics, printmaking, painting and sculpture in the outstanding exhibition Marking Place curated by Peter Haynes at Canberra Museum and Gallery from November 2012 to March 2013.

Anita McIntyre, G W Bot and Wendy Teakel

Visual Arts

For her outstanding successes this year: the Telstra Art Award in the Northern Territory, the Australia Council for the Arts' National Indigenous Art Fellowship and her participation in many group shows.
Jenni Kemarre Martiniello

Visual Arts

 

For her exhibition StellrScope at Questacon and CSIRO Discovery in August 2013, which explored scientific innovations in Australian wheat production over the past 100 years and contributed refreshing insights into questions regarding the relationship between art, science and technology, and how these productive relationships can be used to engage a broad audience.
Eleanor Gates-Stuart

Visual Arts

For her well planned and beautifully executed exhibition Process and Possibilities at the Belconnen Arts Centre that showcased the artist passion for printmaking and was a summation of the artist’s long dedication to her art.
Jo Hollier

Visual Arts

For their exhibition of stunningly dramatic and expressive glass works Parlingarri Mamanta at the Canberra Glassworks in August this year, which was a fruitful collaboration between an artist well versed in the rich Tiwi Islands tradition and the skill and experience of a renowned glassmaker.

Luna Ryan and Jock Puautjimi

Visual Arts

For raising the profile of textiles in the Canberra community and for her own contribution to textiles practice as a tapestry weaver, teacher and facilitator.

Valerie Kirk

Musicals

For the excellence, craftsmanship and impact of this crisp and highly controlled production of a very tricky music theatre classic that combined the theatre technology of the 21st Century with the music of rock and symphony and the foreboding ideas of H. G. Wells’ seminal science fiction 1898 novel.

Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds by SUPA Productions

 Musicals

For producing the Canberra premiere of The Phantom of the Opera, by Free Rain Theatre, a huge and complex show that involved both professional and community collaboration.

Anne Somes

Musicals

For a warmly sympathetic and richly sung Jean Valjean in Canberra Philharmonic's Les Miserables. He anchored the huge work with quiet presence.

Dave Smith

Theatre

For the excellence and bravery of her writing and performing in Bijou, a powerful cabaret style piece about a woman of Paris.

Chrissie Shaw

Theatre

For a superbly comic Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream presented by Queanbeyan City Council at the Q.

Jenna Roberts

Theatre

for his insightful and imaginative direction of Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood for Canberra Repertory.

Duncan Ley

Theatre

For a bold and risky choice that explored some difficult themes in an imaginative and powerfully theatrical way.

The Book of Everything by Canberra Repertory

Theatre

serious theatre’s original, creative and good humoured retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Princess on the Pea, directed by barb barnett for The Street Theatre’s Made in Canberra series, written by David Finnigan, designed by Gillian Schwab, audio design by Seth Edwards- Ellis.
Pea!

Music

For their new chamber opera From a Black Sky, set against a backdrop of devastating fires in Canberra. This full-blooded, lyrical tale of love and betrayal was told eloquently through a mature and unified palette of musical colours.
Composer Sandra France and librettist Helen Nourse.

Music

For their collaboration as Brew Guitar Duo, now in its tenth year, their contribution as members of Guitar Trek, their innovative ‘Home BREW’ home recitals, their promotion of the art of the classical guitar through their engaging concerts and recordings featuring a diverse repertoire and their passion for commissioning and premiering compositions by Australian composers.

Bradley Kunda and Matt Withers

Music

For her outstanding contribution to music in Canberra during concert performances as a vocalist/pianist and especially for her excellent achievement as vocal coach for the Canberra premiere production of The Phantom of the Opera.

Leisa Keen

Music

For his visionary directing of the Canberra International Music Festival, particularly for his extraordinary ability to identify the archetypal features of Canberra’s design and lifestyle, then to construct a festival program that complements those qualities and broadens the audience appeal.  For fully engaging young and emerging music performers in the Festival program, enabling them to progress their careers by working in collaboration with respected composers and performers.

Christopher Latham

Music

For a brilliant year of top-quality, eclectic music performances, from the most rarefied classic music to jazz and rock. For his leadership of and composition for the band the Monotremes and for arranging the music for the Centenary Symphony Music Education Project.

Adam Cook

Music

For his innovative musical direction of the Griffyn Ensemble, which has performed themed music in venues as varied as Old Melbourne Gaol and CSIRO Discovery. For his compositions, commissioned by the Centenary of Canberra, the Australian Society for Music Education, the Swedish Embassy and the Canberra Mandolin Orchestra. For championing youth music and putting Canberra music on the international map through his work as chair of International Music Council Youth.

Michael Sollis

Music

For the gift of music to the community to celebrate Canberra’s centenary every day during 2013. For staging and producing hundreds of performances offering audiences a wide variety of musical programs and venues. For the generosity of the musicians in performing at no cost.

The Musical Offering