APRA AMCOS: 23% mentorship program

APRA AMCOS has introduced the 14 songwriter and composer members who will participate on this 12 months’s 23% mentorship program for girls and gender numerous music creators.

This 12 months’s mentees are Alice Hurwood, Ange Nishimwe (Ange-Bella), Athanasia Sakoutis (Athanasia), Ayda Akbal, Doolie Shadforth (Doolie), Georgia Slater (Solly Fern), Kyah Parrott (Hayku Kyah), Layla George (Jean Elliot), Lucie O’Connor (Lucie Tiger), Naomi Geste, Nicole Issa, Roz Yuen, Sasha Gavlek and Siobhan McGinnity (Magnets).

Every mentee is paired with a mentor specifically chosen to align with profession stage, targets and priorities for a three-month interval. This 12 months’s mentors embody a few of the trade’s main figures primarily based in Australia, the UK and the US together with Bumpy, KLP, Mo’Ju, Milan Ring, Nat Dunn and Tammy Ari. Every profitable applicant additionally receives $3,000 in the direction of tasks or work-related bills and/or journey.

Display composer, Ayda Akbal, who shall be working with LA-based composer Tammy Ari, provides: “Tammy Ari isn’t solely a rare composer, but in addition a fellow Melburnian who has been residing and dealing in Los Angeles for a few years. She’s trodden a path that I might be proud to comply with, which makes our one-on-one mentorship notably significant, particularly since we’re in a position to meet in individual in a metropolis that’s new to me, simply because it as soon as was for her.”

23% is a reference to the proportion of APRA AMCOS members who determine as girls or gender numerous. It’s a part of a collection of commitments from the organisation geared toward addressing gender disparity in music via impactful applications, funding and advocacy, together with a 40/40/20 dedication to a minimal of 40% illustration of girls throughout all applications and judging panels.

Karen Don, Head of Membership at APRA AMCOS, concludes: “Congratulations to all of this 12 months’s mentees! We all know that moving into and sustaining a profession within the music trade could be powerful at the very best of instances, however for girls and gender numerous songwriters and composers it may be much more difficult. Packages like 23% are hopefully one small step in the correct path to help and obtain gender parity in our trade.”