The Ian Potter Cultural Trust has today announced that it will pledge $1 million towards the support of alumni from the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM) who are taking their first steps as independent musicians.
The fund will be given out in two annual Ian Potter Emerging Performer Fellowships between 2024–2028, with each fellow receiving $100,000 over two years. With the goal to support the development of the Australian creative freelance field, the grants are open to alum developing an independent creative practice who are currently not engaged by an orchestra or other professional performance organisations.
“The Australian music scene is immeasurably enriched by those performers who choose to carve out a career outside the traditional orchestral sector, deeply rewarding though such an orchestral career may be,” says ANAM General Manager Nick Bailey to Limelight.
“The post-COVID path trodden by musicians and other performing artists can be a precarious one at the best of times, doubly so for such musicians. With this grant we aim to identify those musicians whose work we believe will have an impact on the country’s future creative imagination, and give them the necessary space to just be artists.”
When she was an early career artist herself, flautist and ANAM alumnus Eliza Shephard found the expectations of her as a flute player to be “fairly prescriptive”, with a presupposition that she would join an orchestra, though an early exposure to a multitude of art forms left her adaptable and thus able to thrive as a freelancer.
“As I leant into exploring a more diverse career, I was hit with the reality that I would need to be a musician that was capable and comfortable across a range of styles and ensembles,” she tells Limelight.
“This fellowship is going to prove career-altering to the fortunate musicians selected: to be given time and space for creation is rare and incredibly sought-after.”
The Fellowships are also not dedicated to the delivery and development of specific projects, with a more flexible goal for the career development of early-stage artists.
Applications for the Fellowships open on 28 August, and are open to ex-students of any age who studied at ANAM for at least two years, and have completed formal training. The inaugural recipients of the Fellowships will be announced in late 2023.
The Ian Potter Cultural Trust currently offers grants worth $15,000 for emerging artists to fund professional development opportunities, with a focus on international travel. Past recipients include composers Matthew Laing and Kate Milligan, percussionist Kaylie Melville, and sopranos Yvette Keong and Fleuranne Brockway.
“I hope that this fellowship will also inspire other funding bodies and philanthropists to support other worthwhile projects and opportunities of a similar strain,” says Shephard.
“They are necessary for the furthering of our creativity and so unbelievably appreciated by the arts community.”
Source: limelightmagazine.com.au
