Four festivals up for Helpmann Awards

The 27^th Bluesfest in Byron Bay, St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival, Tasmania’s MOFO and WOMADelaide are up for Best Contemporary Music Festival in this year’s Helpmann Awards. 

Nominees for this, and 40 other categories, were announced last night by Live Performance Australia (LPA) at events in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane.

Winners are announced at the awards on Monday July 25 at Sydney’s Lyric Theatre in the Star Event Centre. Now in their 16^th year, the Helpmanns will be broadcast live on Foxtel Arts and webcast for free via foxtelarts.com.au.

Vying for Best Australian Contemporary Concert are State Of Grace: The Music of Tim and Jeff Buckley (with a cast including Martha Wainwright, Steve Kilbey and Gods And Monsters); Flight Facilities with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra; Kate Miller-Heidke & The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra at Mofo 2016 with visuals by Amy Gebhardt; and Vance Joy’s Fire And The Flood Tour in April. 

The winner of Best International Contemporary Concert will be Brian Wilson Live At The Palais Theatre, Florence And The Machine, Fleetwood Mac’s On With The Show Tour, and Prince’s Piano & Microphone Tour which marked the superstar’s last visit to Australia two months before his death. 

The Helpmann Awards cover comedy, cabaret, opera & classical, children’s presentation, dance & physical theatre, and musicals. There are also categories for music direction, sound design, scenic design, regional touring, choreography as well as best female and female in relevant productions.

Although not part of the three Contemporary Music categories, multi-nominees included Tim Finn and Tim Minchin.

Finn’s Ladies In Black, on which he collaborated with Carolyn Burns and Simon Phillips for the Queensland Theatre Company production, is up for Best New Australian Work.

Finn is also nominated for Best Original Score for Ladies In Black, alongside Minchin’s Matilda The Musical, David Page’s Ochres (Bangarra Dance Theatre) and Eddie Perfect’s Songs From The Middle from the Adelaide Festival Centre’s Adelaide Cabaret Festival.

Matilda the Musical lead the Helpmann nominees with a total of 13 mentions, also including Best Musical, Best Actress and Best Male Lead.

LPA Chief Executive, Evelyn Richardson, commented it’s been “a remarkable year for live performances in Australia... with more than 18 million people attending shows across the country and ticket revenues of $1.5 billion”. 

Hosts for this year’s Helpmann’s include Adam Garcia, Helen Dallimore, and the Umbilical Brothers. Performances are by the casts of Matilda the Musical, The Sound of Music, Ladies in Black and Singin’ In The Rain.