This year marks 50 years of the Australian Music Centre (AMC), one of the nation’s most valuable resources in contemporary Australian composition. It’s a milestone worth celebrating.

Genevieve Lang hosting Surrounding Sound. Photo © New Point of View

With the Art Music Awards also announced this week, AMC presented its inaugural Surrounding Sound conference on Tuesday – an all-day event inviting panellists to consider areas important in developing a successful and sustainable practice, as well as career paths for art music composers, performers and organisations.

Reporting from the conference, Limelight’s Maddy Briggs wraps up the top tips and takeaways.

Indigenous culture and AI

In APRA AMCOS’s AI and Music Report, NATSIMO spotlighted the growth of AI as an area with particular dangers for Indigenous cultural rights.

One of the key differences noted by panellist Nathaniel Andrews lies in the idea of “tradition”. Traditional Western music is owned and enters the public domain once copyright expires. In First Nations cultures, songlines are typically passed down through centuries and millennia, and are often collectively owned by a community....