The Ian Potter Music Commissions became Australia's premier music composition awards.  Presented biennially, The Music Commissions were established to help put the spotlight on composition of new Australian music, an area that had been overlooked for some time yet should play a central role in our cultural and artistic landscape.
Initially the Commissions provided smaller grants to multiple recipients but following a review by the Judging Panel in 2003, the Trustees agreed to focus on two categories of composers. 
The Music Commissions were granted as two Fellowships: one for an Emerging Composer  ($20,000 over two years) and one for an Established Composer ($80,000 over two years).  The Commissions sought to reward creative excellence, vision and ideas with the opportunity and scope to realise these in the development, creation and performance of new works.

The Ian Potter Cultural Trust is proud of the contribution the Commissions have made to the cultural life of Australia through the professional development of some of the country's most talented composers and the production of several highly successful works.  Over the past 10 years, $500,000 was granted, 23 composers supported and over 40 new works written, contributing to  the career development of such well-regarded composers and musicians as Martin Friedel, Kate Neale, Tim Dargaville, Matthew Hindson, Barry Conynham, Ross Edwards, Elena Kats-Chernin, Damian Barbeler, Liza Lim and Richard Mills.  The 2009 Fellowship winners were Iain Grandage and Gordon Kerry.
In keeping with the Trust's remit to support all sectors of the Arts, 2009 was the final year of the Music Commissions completing a decade of support for the composition of new Australian music.

A graduate of University of Melbourne, composer and author Gordon Kerry is an exceptional talent in Australian composition.  He has written a catalogue of symphonic and chamber works for orchestras and ensembles both in Australia and overseas and in 2008 was composer-in-residence at the Australian National Academy of Music.
Gordon Kerry's recent works include new works for students at the Australian National Academy of Music (at which he is composer-in-residence), a new completion of the Mozart Requiem commissioned by ABC Classic FM and an overture celebrating the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra's Centenary. Orchestral music has been commissioned by the ABC, BBC, Symphony Australia, Ars Musica Australis and the Australian Youth Orchestra. His extensive body of chamber music has been commissioned for or premiered by Musica Viva Australia, Wigmore Hall, London as well as independent ensembles in Australia, Germany, the USA, Sweden and Russia. Recordings of his music appear on Tall Poppies, Vox Australis and ABC Classics, who have released harvesting the solstice thunders, a CD of his orchestral music played by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra.
A commitment to his local community has produced new works for Opera in the Alps, the Murray Conservatorium Choirs and Orchestra and the Riverina Summer School for Strings.

He has written numerous choral works for ensembles including Sydney Philharmonia, the Prague Chamber Choir and the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic. His opera Medea has been performed in Australia and the USA with Chamber Made Opera and in Germany in several seasons with the Berliner Kammeroper. ABC Classics has released the opera on CD.

Gordon Kerry studied composition with Barry Conyngham at the University of Melbourne, and he has held fellowships from the Australia Council, Peggy Glanville-Hicks Trust and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, USA. He lives on a hill in north-eastern Victoria, Australia and has just completed a book, New Classical Music: Composing Australia, for UNSW Press.

Winning Submission Summary

For The Ian Potter Music Commissions, Gordon proposed four new works including a symphonic work for Sydney Symphony Orchestra, a flute concerto for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, a work for men's voices and harp for the Sydney Chamber Choir and a new concert overture for Bendigo Symphony Orchestra plus the completion of a full score for Victorian Opera.

www.gordonkerry.com

Emerging Composer winner Iain Grandage is a composer, pianist and cellist who graduated with honours from the Music School at University of Western Australia in 1992 and has primarily specialised in writing for theatre, for which he has won a string of awards.

Iain is currently Composer-in-Residence with the Youth Orchestras of Australia, having recently completed a similar residency with the WA Symphony Orchestra. He has won Helpmann and Green Room Awards for theatre scores, which include Cloudstreet, The Blue Room, Babes in the Wood, Plainsong, Merry-Go-Round in the Sea & True West.

He has been a member of Bulletin Magazine's Smart 100, and has won APRA/AMC awards for his orchestral orchestral works, and has orchestrated songs for Ben Folds, Augie March, Tim & Tex and the Whitlams.  He has composed an opera for children, scores for dance projects, and incidental music for BBC Radio3 and Radio4.

In 1996 and 1998, Iain was musical director and arranger for the national tours of Jimmy Chi's multi award winning Corrugation Road, and his involvement with indigenous musicians has continued through his collaborations with the Spinifex people of central Australia, initially on the theatre work Career Highlights of the Mamu, and more recently with concert works in collaboration with WASO, and Topology.

A documentary on these collaborations titled 'Ooldea' aired on ABC TV in March 2007.

His concert compositions have been performed throughout Australia and overseas by the Australian Voices, Australian Boys' Choir, St Peter's Chorale, Collegium Musicum, WA Youth Orchestra and the WA Symphony Orchestra. As a performer, he plays in the funk cello band wood, contemporary ensemble Pi, the Australian Art Orchestra, and moonlights with a cabaret singer called Meowmeow.

Future projects include a song cycle for Sara Macliver titled Blackwood, a quintet for the Brodsky Quartet with Craig Ogden, touring in Europe with the dance-theatre work Lawn, working with The Black Arm Band and composing the score for a new dance-theatre piece for Cologne Theatre.

Winning Submission Summary

Iain has proposed a trilogy of ‘ocean songs' inspired by the seascapes of Western Australia: a work for The Australian Brass Quintet,  a work for percussionist Paul Tanner and the third, a piece for the ensemble Fused, to be performed as part of the Soft Soft Loud Chamber Music Festival in 2010/2011.

 www.iaingrandage.com