It has been a whirlwind couple of years for Vanessa Perica. The Perth-raised, Melbourne-based composer, arranger and conductor released her debut album, Love is a Temporary Madness, in February 2020, and ever since the accolades and engagements haven’t stopped.
The album won Best Jazz Album at the 2020 Music Victoria Awards, and was a nominee for the Australian Music Prize and AIR Independent Awards. Perica also won the APRA Art Music Award and Australian Jazz Bell Award in 2021 for Jazz Work of the Year for Spaccanapoli, the first track on the album, and was a finalist for the Emerging Artist Award at the 2022 Women in Music Awards.
Vanessa Perica. Photo © Pia Johnson.
The funny thing is, Perica doesn’t think of herself as an ‘emerging’ artist at all. In fact she has been gigging, writing and working away for the better part of 20 years, long before she graduated from the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) in 2003, receiving the prestigious Bob Wyllie Scholarship for Most Outstanding Graduate along the way.
“It has been an unusual trajectory for me,” admits Perica. “I...
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