Media Release

Elder Conservatorium receives major award

The University of Adelaide's renowned Elder Conservatorium of Music [1] has received one of the prestigious Classical Music Awards for 2005 from the Australian Music Centre [2] and the Australasian Performing Rights Association [3].

The Elder Conservatorium of Music received an award for its outstanding contribution to Australian music through the "Beethoven Songlines Series", a series of 11 concerts that it curated and presented within the 2004 Adelaide Festival of Arts [4].

The award was made in recognition of the presentation of new Australian works, which were performed alongside major works of Beethoven.

The Director and Dean of the Elder Conservatorium of Music, Professor Charles Bodman Rae, says he was proud to receive the award on behalf of the Conservatorium.

"It is particularly pleasing because the Conservatorium is strongly committed to the creation and promotion of new works by Australian composers," Professor Bodman Rae says.

"It is also a tribute to the important role played by the Australian String Quartet, the School's quartet-in-residence, which premiered several of the works in the series."

Some of the works premiered included Professor Bodman Rae's own Second String Quartet, and Songs of the Supernatural (for soprano and string quartet) by Andrew Ford, which received the national award for Best Vocal Work.

The 2005 Classical Music Awards were announced in Sydney recently and were broadcast live on ABC Classic FM [5].