Awards hit the right note for Conservatorium

Music

Staff and performers from the University of Adelaide's renowned Elder Conservatorium of Music continue to receive national and international recognition for their achievements.

The Conservatorium was awarded a prestigious Classical Music Award for 2005 by the Australian Music Centre and the Australasian Performing Rights Association. (The Conservatorium has reverted to its name of more than 100 years, after being known for a short time as the Elder School of Music.)

It was honoured for its outstanding contribution to Australian music through the "Beethoven Songlines Series", a series of 11 concerts it curated and presented as part of the 2004 Adelaide Festival of Arts.

The award was made for the Conservatorium's presentation of new Australian works, which were performed alongside major works of Beethoven.

"It is particularly pleasing because the Conservatorium is strongly committed to the creation and promotion of new works by Australian composers," Director and Dean of the Conservatorium, Professor Charles Bodman Rae, said.

"It is also a tribute to the important role played by the Australian String Quartet, the School's quartet-in-residence, which premiered several of the works in the series."

• Professor Bodman Rae's personal music research will also be honoured next month, as he receives the internationally prestigious Lutoslawski Medal in Poland.

Witold Lutoslawski is regarded as one of the great composers of the 20th Century, and Professor Bodman Rae worked closely with him from 1981 until Lutoslawski's death in 1994. Professor Bodman Rae's book The Music of Lutoslawski was first published in 1994 and is currently in its third edition.

According to the award's citation, Professor Bodman Rae is being honoured for his "unique contribution to the understanding of the art and ideas of Witold Lutoslawski".

"I'm very honoured to receive this award," Professor Bodman Rae said. "Lutoslawski was one of the greatest creative artists of our time, and he was also a man of modesty and great moral integrity."