The Richard Gill Award for Distinguished Services to Australian Music will be posthumously presented to composer Nigel Butterley at the 2022 Art Music Awards.

The Art Music Awards are presented by APRA AMCOS – the Australasian Performing Rights Association (APRA) and the Australian Music Centre (AMC). They recognise achievement in the composition, performance, education and presentation of Australian music across contemporary classical music, contemporary jazz and improvised music, experimental music and sound art.

Nigel Butterley. Photo © Josh Raymond

Nigel Butterley is considered one of the most influential pioneers of contemporary Australian composition.

Born in Sydney in 1935, he died in his home city on 19 February, 2022 after a long illness, just two months before his 87th birthday.

In an obituary for Limelight, Vincent Plush wrote: “Along with Peter Sculthorpe (1929–2014) and Richard Meale (1932–2009), Butterley was the third member of that triumvirate of Sydney-based composers whose music created a new, contemporary outlook for Australian music. Every new work of Butterley’s was eagerly awaited and keenly discussed.”

Plush added, “Unlike others of his generation, Butterley cut the image of a reserved and undemonstrative creative figure, contemplative and even reticent, almost every work...