CLARE BOWDITCH - APRA

Anthea Sarris
Brett Cottle
Photo by >> Jan Kuczerawy Photo by >> Jan Kuczerawy
EDITOR’S WRAP
Even in the formal surrounds of Sydney’s City
Recital Hall and The Westin Hotel, this year’s
APRA-AGSC Screen Music Awards had the
warm, familiar feel of a backyard barbeque
(albeit a very sophisticated one!). The seasoned
veterans and young guns of screen composition
mingled, gossiped and generally ‘caught up’ at
their annual gathering – a communal affair for
what can be a very solitary craft.
In this issue of Aprap we investigate the art,
craft and challenges of writing music for the
screen: we catch up with composers Richard
Tognetti, Michael Yezerski, Amanda Brown,
Mick Harvey and Bryony Marks in our feature
article, The Spellbinders (p. 9-11); film critic
and cinemaphile Andrew Urban explores the
value of music in Australian cinema (p. 12); and
we put spotlight the on Victoria Kelly – an NZ
screen composer going global (p. 16).
“Encouragement is one of the highest forms love
can take,” said arts patron and philanthropist
Barbara Blackman at this year’s APRA-AMC
Classical Music Awards (p. 7). In this issue
we’re thrilled to report on how some of APRA’s
to the point
As this edition of Aprap goes to press, the
Senate Legal and Constitutional Committee
has just issued its report on the Copyright
Amendment Bill 2006. The Committee did a
remarkable job of considering a Bill of more
than 200 pages of complicated provisions in
a very short turnaround time that permitted
only four hours – yes, that’s correct, hours
– of public hearings.
The result was an 80-page report that
devoted all of four paragraphs to the
Bill’s most significant policy change; namely
giving consumers a blanket right to copy
recorded music into other formats for
“private and domestic purposes”, without
any compensation for songwriters, publishers
or recording artists. The lack of interest
in the issue on the part of the Senate
Committee has been sadly indicative of a
singular lack of Government interest in the
idea of statutory compensation for copyright
owners for private copying, despite the
support of just about everyone in the music
industry except the major record labels.
encouragement is making a difference: check
out the postcards from 2006 Professional
Development Award winners Amira Pyliotis and
Natalie Williams (p.3); and on p. 15 you’ll find a
list of all the organisations and events that have
received APRA music grants for 2006/07.
Also in this issue we celebrate the achievements
of Indigenous songwriters with a pictorial tour
of the recent NT Indigenous Music Awards
and the 12th Deadlys; and we farewell former
APRA Chairman, Director and Writer member,
Dorothy Dodd (p.18).
My first gig as editor has been a blast. I hope
you enjoy reading Aprap as much as Kirti, I and
the rest of the editorial team enjoyed pulling
it together.
Best wishes for the holiday season - see you
in 2007!
Anthea Sarris
(and presumably its recording artists) for
unauthorised private copying of recordings
onto Zune players. But it seems unlikely that
there will be any contractual entitlement for
songwriters or their publishers to share in
such a private levy… which is exactly why
there should be statutory levy on private
copying media in Australia – including iPods,
Zunes and other MP3 players – to guarantee
equity to all music copyright owners, not
just major record labels. Which only makes
the Government’s peremptory disinterest in
the subject all the more disappointing.
Brett Cottle, CEO APRA
Photo by >> Warwick Baker
What is it you most value about music?
The unpredictability of it, its beauty, the mystery of where
it comes from, the joy of not knowing, and its universality.
What are you currently working on?
One new album, two new babies.
What are you listening to?
Art of Fighting, Stormy One and Hot Little Hands demos,
also having a Thelonious Monk/Donny Hathaway revival
at our house right now...
What is your favourite film about music or is it a musical?
Sheesh - it’s only partly about music; Bertolucci’s Beseiged.
Stunning soundtrack.
What is your favourite book/website about music?
Pitchforkmedia.com
What is the best live performance you’ve ever been to,
whether you were performing or not?
It’s an urban cliché now, I know, but as a teenager seeing
Jeff Buckley play at the Palais for the first time, that blew my
mind. Other most recent mind blowers include Gillian Welch
and David Rawlings at Meeniyan Hall - oh brother.
What is the quickest piece you have written and which piece
took the longest to write?
Yesterday I began work again on a song I’ve been writing
for twelve years. As soon as I get an idea or an inkling that
a song is coming on, I turn on my recording device and
capture it. Quite often these original late-night or early
morning versions are the ones that stand.
WHAT’S MY SCENE?
PDA POSTCARDS
AUSTRALIAN ORIGINAL MUSIC EARNINGS
KEEP AN EYE ON ... JORDAN MILLAR
CELEBRATING INDIGENOUS ARTISTS & MUSIC
CELEBRATING PASSION,
DEDICATION AND ARTISTIC TALENT
HONOURING THE UNSEEN CHAMPIONS
THE SPELLBINDERS
Clare Bowditch
Singer, songwriter, 2006 ARIA Award winner, APRA member since 1999.
WHAT’S MY SCENE?
AUSTRALIAN FILM & MUSIC:
AN URBANE PERSPECTIVE
Who have been your greatest musical influences?
John Hedigan, Defah Dattner and Marty Brown.
Who would you most like to collaborate with and why?
In Australia, at this moment in time, even after all these
years, I’d still like Nick Cave to call and ask me to work
with him on something.
What’s your favourite piece (that you’ve written)?
It’s usually whatever is most recent - at the moment it’s a
song called Dog Back. But I also feel particularly fond of
Homage to my Dad and the ABC, for obvious reasons.
What piece written by another writer do you wish you had
written, and why?
I have a longstanding song-writer’s crush on everyone in
The Drones, and I still can’t get over Shark Fin Blues.
What is the quality you most admire in a composer?
Ongoing and sustained brilliance/risk-taking punctuated
only by periods of crippling self-doubt which is overcome
again and again. This I admire.
What is the best career advice you were ever given?
Do what you love, not what you think other people
will love. Know thyself, I guess it was.
If you were not a composer, what might you have
ended up doing?
A poor but happy radio documentarian, an ethnomusicologist,
a most frustrated and angry young woman.
INTERNATIONAL NOTES
MEMBER NEWS
SCREENWRAP
SUPPORTING THE ARTS
GOING GLOBAL: VICTORIA KELLY
PUBLISHER NEWS
IN MEMORY OF DOROTHY DODD
WHAT’S HAPPENING
APRA NZ: 2006 APRA SILVER SCROLL AWARDS
FOOD FOR THOUGHT.
A P R A P D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 6 > > 0 2
Accordingly, it was with a strong sense
of irony that we were to read, just as the
Senate Committee released its report, that a
major record label had negotiated a private
levy with Microsoft, to apply to each of
Microsoft’s new Zune MP3 players, sold to
the public. This levy will compensate the label
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