This month marks the 100th anniversary of the moment in 1926 when six music publishers founded the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA).
Cue a year-long program of celebrations for the centenary of the organisation that, via a 1997 merger, became APRA Amcos. They are kicking off with an ‘APRA: A Century of Song‘ website offering a timeline of its history.
Also in store: the biggest APRA Music Awards yet in April, as well as the Silver Scroll Awards / Kaitito Kaiaka in New Zealand in October; a beefed-up SongHubs collaborative songwriting program in April and September in the respective countries; an anthology book about Australian songwriting; and a new hall-of-fame event in November.
“This centenary isn’t just about looking back – it’s about celebrating the enduring value of songwriting to our culture, identity and our two nations,” said CEO Dean Ormston.
While this is all celebratory, the anniversary also comes at a sensitive moment for musicians in Australia and New Zealand.
In October last year, an APRA Amcos report warned that local music’s share of streams in Australasia had fallen noticeably over the last five years. A follow-up report in November from think-tank The Australia Institute backed those findings.
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‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source musically.com ’
