Australian Women in Music Awards 2024: rock meets opera as women unite at AWMAs
Hosted in Brisbane since 2018, the Australian Women in Music Awards highlights the achievements of female music industry workers across 18 categories, with opera to debut later this year.
To close the Australian Women in Music Awards last year, an all-female group plugged in and produced a high voltage, hard-rocking cover of AC/DC’s 1975 song It’s a Long Way to the Top, complete with bagpipes.
Standing centre stage on electric guitar and vocals was Sarah McLeod, alongside fellow singers including Vanessa Amorosi and sisters Vika and Linda Bull.
McLeod has been performing on Australian stages for 30 years – much of it as frontwoman of ARIA Award-winning rock quartet The Superjesus – but that showstopping closer marked a first: never before in her career had she played with an all-woman band.
That night celebrating female excellence in music was a long way from the bloke-heavy gender blend of her youth, where the only Australian rock singers she could see were Chrissy Amphlett of Divinyls and Suze DeMarchi of Baby Animals.
“If they had something like [these awards] in the 1990s, I think it would have validated so much,” McLeod said.
“There wasn’t too many of us, and it would have been a really supportive, lovely part of the industry that we would have all taken comfort in, and found unity in. The men have unity in everything they do, but we haven’t really had that, until now.”
Hosted in Brisbane since 2018, the Australian Women in Music Awards has sought to highlight the achievements of female performers and music industry workers across 18 categories.
For the upcoming ceremony, AWMA has created a new award for opera performers and industry workers, thanks to a new supporting partnership with Opera Australia.
McLeod enjoyed her star turn at the awards last year so much that she has joined not-for-profit charity Australian Women in Music as a board director, and is now encouraging female and non-binary industry workers to nominate themselves – or their peers – for the upcoming event, with nominations opening on Tuesday.
Earlier this month, she met with First Nations soprano Nina Korbe, who recently completed her debut season with Opera Australia in West Side Story on Sydney Harbour, and who will perform at the AWMA ceremony, to be held in Brisbane on October 2.
Their recent photo shoot together is striking in its juxtaposition of a career rock ‘n’ roller alongside an opera singer.
They represent two artforms rarely seen side-by-side, yet which illustrate the wide range of performance styles within Australian music.
As you take in the images with Korbe, McLeod wants you to see “two women standing in their own power, from very different parts of the music industry,” she said. “Yet it doesn’t matter what style of music that you’re doing; it’s how you feel when you’re doing it.
“When I was young, I was always told that a career in music was short-lived, and to make as much money as you possibly can quickly, because it’s not going to last long – especially being a woman, because there’s always this ageism, that ‘people don’t want to see an old lady on stage’,” she said.
“I want to make a very clear point that that’s bullshit,” said McLeod.
“I want people to see that you can have a bloody long career in this industry; you’ve just got to work hard, you’ve got to stick at it, and you’ve got to love it.”
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