APRA AMCOS and the Australian Music Centre have announced the finalists for the 2022 Art Music Awards, which will be held live in Melbourne on 31 August after last year’s online ceremony. The awards recognise the excellence and achievements of Australian musicians and artists across a range of categories and prizes. This year’s finalists have explored the incredible social and cultural impact of the ongoing global pandemic, as well as the accelerating climate emergency.

Hand to Earth. Photo supplied

While you might expect pandemic-inspired works to be fraught with fear and anxiety, endless lockdowns also provided an opportunity to explore stillness and rest, as seen in the finalists for the Work of the Year – Large Ensemble category. Anne Cawrse, winner of the 2021 Chamber category, is nominated for her meditative concerto for cor anglais and orchestra, The Rest is Silence. Olivia Davies’ work Stratus had its 2020 premiere curtailed by lockdowns. Inspired by the image of a stratus cloud, it was finally performed last year by the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. The transcendent Śūnyatā by Fiona Hill, performed by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, opens with a musically notated...