Belinda Webster has passed away at her home in Kangaroo Valley. A flautist, artist, teacher and engineer, Webster was a champion of Australian music through her company Tall Poppies Records, an independent record label focusing on Australian-made solo and chamber music.

Belinda Webster. Photo courtesy of Felix Hayward/FacebookWebster worked as a presenter and sound engineer with 2MBS throughout the 1980s, and founded Tall Poppies Records in 1991. One of Australia’s most notable labels dedicated to recording and promoting Australian composers and performers, it has released over 250 discs featuring works from composers Carl Vine, Nigel Westlake, Ross Edwards, Peter Sculthorpe and Elena Kats-Chernin, and performers including the Australia Ensemble, Sydney Chamber Choir and the Goldner String Quartet.

”I see the value of what I’m doing as providing an archive of chamber music in Australia during this part of our century,” Webster told the Sydney Morning Herald in 2011. “In 100 years’ time people will be able to listen to Tall Poppies recordings and know what kind of activity was going on.”

In 1997, Webster was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for her service to the Australian music industry through Tall Poppies Records.

Webster was the co-founder and Artistic Director of Arts in the Valley, a biennial festival of music and visual arts established in Kangaroo Valley in 2007; the festival’s 2026 program will be presented in October.

At the 2007 Classical Music Awards (now the Art Music Awards), Webster received the Distinguished Services to Australian Music award. In 2011, Webster also received the Don Banks Music Award, which honours “outstanding and sustained contribution by a senior artist” to Australian music. Presenting her with the $60,o00 award, composer Matthew Hindson said:

“Belinda’s incredible passion and tireless energy for Australian music has given hundreds of Australia’s most talented musicians a fully professional outlet for their work that would otherwise be unavailable. She has supported the careers of countless musicians and composers, capturing their work and allowing others to enjoy and to be inspired by it.”

Since its establishment, the company has also commissioned 47 new works, including Ross Edwards’ Ecstatic Dances.

Webster was also a teacher,  filmmaker and photographer; her photos of NSW’s Shoalhaven Gorge inspired the compositions for Sandy Evans’ 2017 album RockPoolMirror.

“Belinda was a wonderful person – deeply caring, witty, knowledgeable, creative, perceptive, warm, intelligent, dedicated, brave, visionary,” wrote Evans on Facebook.

“She was tirelessly dedicated to Australian musicians and composers and never wasted a moment to either explain or apologise for her singular view of what mattered. Her record label Tall Poppies grew from impossible dreams to become a genuine player at an international level. Her contribution to music in Australia is incalculable and there will not be another like her.”

More about Tall Poppies Records can be found here.