Three proponents of New Music are recipients of this year’s Australia Council for the Arts Creative Fellowships. Percussionist and composer Eugene Ughetti, composer and multimedia artist Robin Fox and composer Amanda Cole feature among the eleven awards of $60,000–$100,000 each.

The awards are notable as recognition by the Australia Council of the situation on the musical ground where ever-increasing audiences have been exposed to and enjoyed “difficult” New and experimental music over the past ten years. This has been thanks to the efforts of a generation of agitators like Ughetti and Fox; ensembles like Ensemble Offspring, Synergy Percussion, Clocked Out and Speak Percussion and festivals like the Totally Huge New Music Festival, Liquid Architecture, Aurora and MONA FOMA. Most importantly, it has only been possible because of the quality and energy of the teachers of all these New Musicians and the composers they have championed—some of the very scariest Darmstadt pedigree and who have not been so lauded—including Keith Humble, Warren Burt, Chris Dench, Lawrence Whiffin, Fritz Hauser, Liza Lim, John McCaughey, Thomas Meadowcroft and Andrian Pertout.