Melbourne’s Rubiks Collective has initiated a prize to address the underrepresentation of female composers in Australia.

Samantha Wolf has won the inaugural Pythia Prize, a new commission project launched by Melbourne’s Rubiks Collective in order to help address the underrepresentation of female composers in Australia.

Rubiks was described by Limelight earlier this year as “one of the most exciting ensembles gracing Australia’s contemporary music stage”. As the winner of the Pythia Prize, Wolfe will collaborate with the Collective to create a new work to be premiered next year. It will have performances in Australia and in Europe when Rubiks tours internationally for the first time in July. Wolfe will receive a $2,000 honorarium and a recording of Rubiks performing the new work.

^{Samantha Wolf. Photograph supplied.}

The Prize was presented to Wolfe last night at Melbourne Recital Centre at a Rubiks concert honouring American composer Meredith Monk, a female pioneer of unique creativity. The concert was a celebration of Monk’s 75th birthday and a retrospective of her career, pairing some of her most recent works – including the Australian premieres of Backlight (2015) and Real Variations (2012) – with some of...