| Author | Message | ||
     steve haddan Member Username: Steve_haddan Post Number: 3 Registered: 05-2006 |
Subject: PREMIER ANNOUNCES $20,000 FELLOWSHIP FOR SONGWRITERS Premier and Minister for Trade The Honourable Peter Beattie 22/12/2006 PREMIER ANNOUNCES $20,000 FELLOWSHIP FOR SONGWRITERS The Queensland Government will award an annual $20,000 music fellowship in memory of the late singer-songwriter Grant McLennan, Premier Beattie has announced today. Grant, who died in May this year, was a founding member of internationally acclaimed Brisbane band The Go-Betweens. "This $20,000 fellowship will allow a talented Queensland song writer to spend up to two months in Berlin, London, or New York - cities which played a big role in Grant McLennan's career," Mr Beattie said. "Grant was one of Australia's top song writers and one of Queensland's most successful cultural exports," he said. "As a founding member of The Go-Betweens in the late '70s, his lyrics created a unique musical legacy that has helped open so many international doors for other musical exports. "He put our contemporary music on the world map." The Fellowship is being developed by the Queensland Government in consultation with The Go-Betweens co-founder and creative collaborator Robert Forster, and Grant's partner Emma Pursey. It will be administered by Arts Queensland. "I find it heartening and very gratifying that the Queensland Government and Arts Queensland wish to acknowledge the quality and beauty of the song writing of Grant McLennan through the establishment of an annual fellowship in his name," Mr Forster said. "The Fellowship is being shaped in accordance with Grant's ideals. Encouragement and respect of other artists at all times, and the belief that an artist needs to be exposed to new challenges and ideas to create better work," he said. "The Fellowship shall allow a Queensland songwriter each year the opportunity to visit and absorb the music and culture of one of three cities, New York, London, or Berlin. These are three cities Grant McLennan knew well, performed in, and recognised as vibrant centres of ideas that inspired his songs. "Grant would be happy to know fellow Queenslanders would be following in his footsteps, seeking inspiration where he sought it, to the benefit of their own craft, and to the benefit of those in the broader community who shall get to hear it. "Grant loved the arts more than any other person I know. And although forged and continually inspired by his Queensland surroundings, he dreamt of foreign cities as places to see, and places that he knew would add to his own knowledge and depth as an artist. "That this is to continue through the Grant McLennan Fellowship is very pleasing to me, and honours him." December 22, 2006 Media Contact: Premier's Office 3224 4500 | ||
| Elizabeth Robinson Member Username: Liz_the_new_listener Post Number: 45 Registered: 10-2006 |
What a wonderful enduring gift to Australian music and to the world that will hear it, and it's only right that it's on behalf of the great Grant McLennan. When I was younger and had big dreams it made all the difference in the world for me to travel abroad, out of the United States. 'Beauty will save the world' - Dostoevsky |