It’s been three years since the prestigious Paul Lowin Prizes were last awarded, but today six recent Australian compositions have been announced as finalists for awards in 2016. The Orchestral Prize, worth $25,000, and the Song Cycle Prize, worth $15,000, are among Australia’s richest rewards for music composition and are managed every two or three years by Perpetual in collaboration with the Australian Music Centre.

The three works shortlisted for this year’s Orchestral Prize are James Ledger’s 2013 Violin Concert Golden Years, written for Margaret Blades and commissioned by the West Australian Symphony Orchestra, Cathy Milliken’s Earth Plays, premiered last year by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and winner of this year’s Art Music Awards Orchestral Work of the Year, and Lachlan Skipworth’s Clarinet Concerto, which won the Australian Art Music Awards’ 2015 prize for Best Performance of an Australian Composition for Ashley Smith and WASO.

Shortlisted for the Song Cycle Prize are Brett Dean’s Hamlet-inspired String Quartet No 2 for soprano and string quartet And once I played Ophelia (now recorded on the Chandos label), Andrew Ford’s 2013 song cycle Last Words for soprano, violin, cello and piano –...