Music News - Finalists announced for APRA Screen Awards and SOUNZ Contemporary Award
29 August 2024 - 0 Comments
Some of New Zealand’s finest composers have been shortlisted for three awards to be presented at the 2024 APRA Silver Scroll Awards | Kaitito Kaiaka.
The SOUNZ Contemporary Award | Te Tohu Auaha, APRA Best Original Music in a Feature Film Award | Tohu Pūmanawa, and Best Original Music in a Series Award | Tohu Paerangi will all be presented at St James Theatre in Te Whanganui a Tara | Wellington on Tuesday 8 October.
SOUNZ Contemporary Award | Te Tohu Auaha
The SOUNZ Contemporary Award | Te Tohu Auaha is New Zealand’s premier composition award, celebrating excellence in contemporary composition. This year's finalists highlight a captivating array of innovation and expression, spanning lyrical chamber works to evocative orchestral compositions.
2024 finalists:
- In All Directions by Karlo Margetić fororchestra
- Mirror Traps by Ihlara McIndoe, featuring text by Hera Lindsay Bird, for soprano and chamber ensemble
- the convergence of oceans by Nathaniel Otley, for orchestra
Past winner of the SOUNZ Contemporary Award, Karlo Margetić, has been nominated for his work In All Directions, for orchestra. In All Directions started as a set of piano pieces during a Covid lockdown. Margetić needed a project as a distraction, and wrote a set of five “stubborn, single-minded miniatures”. Each miniature focuses on one idea: ascending and descending interval cycles, a layered 12-tone row, a labyrinth of repeats, an insistent cluster, and an agglomeration of disintegrating echoes of the previous movements. Later he made the orchestral version, modifying and expanding the pieces in the process of translating the limited source material to a larger medium. The work was part of the 2023 NZ Composer Sessions and performed by the NZSO with Hamish McKeich conducting.
First-time finalist, Ihlara McIndoe is a composer and musicologist from Ōtepoti Dunedin, currently based in Montreal, Canada. Her work has been performed and recorded in Aotearoa, Australia, Canada, France, Japan, and the USA. McIndoe has been nominated for her work Mirror Traps, for soprano and chamber ensemble, drawing on text from Hera Lindsay Bird, a favourite New Zealand poet. “In Mirror Traps, I sought to present a sense of the lyrical yet angular, simile cascading, effortlessly shifting, flowing, fragmented, ironic, tender (and more) qualities of Hera Lindsay Bird's text” explains McIndoe. Performed by Ensemble Court-Circuit and soprano Johanna Vargas, Mirror Traps was performed in 2023 at the Voix Nouvelles Academy and Festival de Royaumont and recorded at France Musique.
Also from Ōtepoti Dunedin, Nathaniel Otley, is a second-time finalist for the SOUNZ Contemporary Award, has been nominated for his work the convergence of oceans, for orchestra. The work was created as part of Otley’s 2023 composer in residence position with the NZSO National Youth Orchestra. Otley describes the National Youth Orchestra as “an annual convergence of some of Aotearoa’s incredible young musical talent”, and when considering how to write a work that suited this, the ocean, which surrounds us here in Aotearoa and is constantly converging and changing, emerged as an ideal extramusical connection for this ecologically minded exploration of sound.
APRA Screen Music Awards
These two awards recognise the work of our composers that lend their expertise to film and series. Screen writers have the often challenging task of defining the tone, illuminating the story, supporting the characters, and enriching the experience for the viewer, all while remaining unobtrusive and working within the constraints of the production - whether that's a documentary, a drama, or a light comedy. This year’s finalists cross a wide range of styles and genres, in both local and international productions.
APRA Best Original Music in a Feature Film Award | Tohu Pūmanawa 2024 finalists:
- Arli Liberman* and Troy Kingi^ for The Mountain (Published by *Heard & Seen, and ^Kobalt Music Publishing)
- Dana Lund for Joika
- Karl Sölve Steven for Uproar (Published by Heard & Seen)
- Karl Sölve Steven* and Jason Smith for Never Look Away (Published by Heard & Seen)
APRA Best Original Music in a Series Award | Tohu Paerangi 2024 finalists:
- David Feauai-Afaese and Navakatoa Tekela-Pule (Hanisi Garue) for Still Here Season 2 (Published by Heard & Seen)
- Karl Sölve Steven for Testify (Published by Heard & Seen)
- Karl Sölve Steven* and Rob Thorne for Black Coast Vanishings (Published by Heard & Seen)
Arli Liberman and Troy Kingi are both previous winners of APRA Screen Awards and are finalists this year for their collaboration on The Mountain. It’s the debut feature film as director for acclaimed actress Rachel House, and tells the coming-of-age / buddy story of tween Sam, who sets out on a mission to reconnect with her tupuna while battling against cancer, making some new friends along the way.
Also a former winner of Tohu Pūmanawa for her work on Whina, Dana Lund is being recognised this year for her work on the New Zealand-Poland co-production Joika directed by James Napier-Robertson. It’s been described as a ‘brutal ballet film’, sharing the true story of Joy Womack; who as a fifteen-year-old American ballerina from Texas, moves to Moscow to train at the notoriously tough Bolshoi Ballet Academy and pushes herself to her absolute limits in her pursuit of becoming a Prima Ballerina.
First time nominees Hanisi Garue are the dynamic duo David Feauai-Afaese and Navakatoa Tekela-Pule (also known as two thirds of Noa Records, and David as the solo artist LEAO). They have recently delved into the world of screen composition, working on the second season of local documentary series Still Here, which tells stories about Pasifika people living in central Auckland, focusing on music, tatau, and the history of suburbs like Grey Lynn and Herne Bay.
Multi-genre musician and composer Karl Sölve Steven is no stranger to the APRA Screen Awards, having successfully won awards in 2023, 2021, 2020, 2019, and 2016. Steven is a multi-award-winning New Zealand/Swedish composer who returns as a finalist this year four times over for his work on both films and series.
In the Tohu Pūmanawa category Steven is nominated on his own for feature film Uproar, a darkly comic but heartfelt take on the 1981 Springbok protests with a whanau focused tale of identity at its centre. And he’s also nominated alongside Jason Smith for their collaboration on biopic documentary Never Look Away, which profiles New Zealand born CNN camerawoman Margaret Moth whose first assignment with CNN is to cover the riots that followed Indira Gandhi's assassination in India. She goes on to cover conflicts in Africa, the Middle East and fatally, the Bosnian war.
For his Tohu Paerangi nominations, Steven is a solo finalist for drama series Testify, which centres on a wealthy and influential family at the helm of an evangelical megachurch in Auckland. And it’s Steven’s collaborative work with taonga puoro master Rob Thorne which has earned the final nomination for Black Coast Vanishings – a true crime series which delves into the ongoing mystery around the disappearance of six people in the west coast community of Piha.
Congratulations to all the finalists! These finalists were all chosen by judging panels of their peers
The finalists in the Tohu Maioha | APRA Maioha Award and Kaitito Kaiaka | Silver Scroll Award categories will be announced next week on Thursday 5 September. These finalists have been chosen by New Zealand APRA members who voted for their top songs and waiata. You can read about the long lists HERE.
All awards will be presented at St James Theatre in Te Whanganui a Tara | Wellington on Tuesday 8 October.
APRA AMCOS will also honour 2024 Te Whare Taonga Puoro O Aotearoa | NZ Music Hall of Fame inductee Mike Nock. Mike was announced as the 2024 recipient on Friday 23 August, and he will be honoured at the awards with a special tribute and performances. Read more here.
More information:
- About the APRA Silver Scroll Awards
- Past presentations and performances
With thanks to Te Māngai Pāho and NZ On Air for their support.
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