Australia's top musicians were honoured at an art music awards night in August, at which Springwood composer and musician Peta Williams felt privileged to be an invited guest.
Ms Williams was invited to chair the eleven assessment panels of the national APRA AMCOS Art Music Awards, and attended the awards celebration on August 19 in Sydney.
The awards shine a light on the achievements in Australian contemporary classical, jazz and experimental music, in the fields of composition, performance, education and presentation of Australia art music.
"It was an incredibly busy, intense and stimulating experience," Ms Williams said, "and so fantastic to be able to guide the process to enable the artists involved in the assessment of a highly competitive range of award nominations to come to their final decisions. It was testament to the range and quality of Australian art music today that such decision-making was not easy. I applaud the artistic integrity and process that enabled the assessment panels to make the awards in each of these categories, while recognising the high quality of all nominations."
Ms Williams was thrilled to be there to see the newly-titled Richard Gill Award for Distinguished Services to Australian Music, presented to experimental jazz trio The Necks, the first band to receive this honour. The Necks features Blue Mountains resident and bass player Lloyd Swanton, with colleagues Chris Abrahams (piano) and Tony Buck (drums).
Outside of her passion for music, Ms Williams also has a long-standing commitment to the community sector in the Blue Mountains. Formerly the manager of the Lower Mountains Neighbourhood Centre for 11 years, she is now a director at Belong Blue Mountains, formed by the coming together of the Lower Mountains, Mid Mountains and Katoomba Neighbourhood Centres in November 2018. Her musical work is available via her website www.petawilliams.com.au.
