One of Australian performing arts most admired exports, opera director Barrie Kosky, was given the 2019 Sidney Myer Performing Arts Award at a ceremony in Melbourne on Wednesday night.
Kosky (currently in Berlin) takes home the $60,000 individual prize. The judges said that despite spreading himself across three continents, the 53 year-old had "been a remarkable and influential presence in the Australian arts sector" over the past decade.
Tap dancing Noses in Barrie Kosky’s production of Shostakovich’s opera The Nose, which debuted at the Royal Opera House in London.Credit:Bill Cooper, Opera Australia, Royal Opera House
"Kosky's productions Saul and The Magic Flute have underpinned the resurrection of the Adelaide Festival and his season of The Nose at the Sydney Opera House helped Opera Australia break uncharted ground with audiences and critics alike."
The director said he accepted the award "with enormous thanks and gratitude", saying his artistic and cultural ties to Australia were still very important to him.
Acclaimed opera director Barrie Kosky.Credit:Jan Windszus
Kosky's The Magic Flute (co-directed with 1927) has been seen by more than a quarter of a million people on three continents. His production of Castor and Pollux (co-produced by English National Opera) won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Opera Production in 2012.
He is currently working on a "voyeuristic" production of Salome and is reportedly directing a Wagner's Ring cycle in London in 2023.
The group award went to new music collective Ensemble Offspring, who the judges hailed as "some of Australia's most innovative and virtuosic performers" who have premiered more than 300 new works in their 25-year history.
Ensemble Offspring’s Claire Edwardes in flight.
Their "devotion to daring music" won praise from the Sidney Myer prize judges, as well as their championing of "marginalised compositional voices including female and first nations Australian composers".
Percussionist and artistic director Claire Edwardes said they were thrilled and honoured to receive the prize, worth $90,000.
"It feels like a perfect celebration of all our musical achievements so far," she said.
The $25,000 Facilitator's Prize went to Richard Watts, performing arts editor at ArtsHub as well as RRR presenter, founder of the Emerging Writers' Festival and chair of La Mama Theatre's management committee.
The national Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards were established in 1984 and recognise both past achievements and future potential.
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