Australian Women in Music: Vicki Gordon, Christine Anu, Katie Noonan

The Australian Women in Music Awards were launched in Brisbane this week, and they couldn’t be more timely.

Christine Anu, AWMA founder Vicki Gordon and Katie Noonan. Picture: Glenn Hunt

The inaugural Australian Women in Music Awards were announced at the Brisbane Powerhouse on Tuesday, ahead of a two-day event to be held at the same venue on October 9 and 10 that will explore and promote gender and cultural equity in the music industry.

Backed by household names such as Tina Arena, Deborah Conway and Kate Ceberano, the idea is nothing less than timely.

“I think we’re in the zeitgeist, with all of the other movements that are happening around the world, and certainly with women actually now speaking up about their particular situations — but also being listened to, and being believed,” AWMA founding director Vicki Gordon told me on Tuesday. “I’ve worked in the industry for 30 years, and I’ve been solidly trying to pull this together for the last three years, but I think the time is right now, and that’s really evident by the juggernaut of support we’ve managed to harness, from both women and men in the industry.”

Gordon is a Maori woman who began her music industry career in Brisbane, and who has variously worked as a musician, a producer, a festival director and executive director of independent record label Transistor Music. She is one of only two women to have been voted on to the board of the Australian Recording Industry Association in their own right, and there has not been a female member of ARIA’s five-person board since she resigned in 2002.

At the announcement on Tuesday, artist and broadcaster Christine Anu spoke as one of AWMA’s advisory council members, alongside singer and songwriter Katie Noonan. Afterwards, Anu told me that Gordon is “no bullshit, and she always does what she says she’s going to. She’s a go-getter: she’s always fought for women’s rights, and for the positioning of women in the entertainment industry. She’s a woman with very strong vision, and very strong ideals and values. You just know that you’re in good hands, and you know that when she puts her mind to something, good things will come with time.”

Anu came to prominence in the 1990s, most notably with her platinum-selling debut album Stylin’ Up, and has maintained a successful career as a recording artist, actress and broadcaster since. She is clearly thrilled to be involved with the AWMAs. “At this stage of my career, I could not think of being in a more prestigious position as an adviser, representing First Nations women in the music industry,” she says. “I feel like I’ve earned the title, now that I’m older, and I feel like I have arrived at being that flag-bearer.”

Such thoughts have been front of mind of late, as Anu’s 15 year-old daughter, Zipporah “Zippy” Corser-Anu, is considering following in her mother’s footsteps. Late last year they performed together on the Seven Network’s The Morning Show, singing a Christmassy interpretation of the 1970 track Ooh, Child! The online footage is quite something to watch, especially in the closing moments, when Zippy looks over at her mother and smiles in admiration.

“Having been raised by a single mother and a career woman in this industry, in lots of forms of media, I think that it’s been a really great role model position for her to watch,” Anu says. “Not because of the various hats that I wear, but the way that I have had to conduct myself in the industry — and most importantly, to appear happy, and always fight for equality and equity.”