Resonate Country invites Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander APRA AMCOS members to apply for a prestigious three-day songwriting program.
Resonate Country is the newest program from the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Music Office (NATSIMO) and it’s all about finding the power of one’s voice. A three-day songwriting intensive program that will be held from January 20 to 22 at Mad Proppa Deadly Studios in Armidale NSW, if you’ve been looking for a sign to polish up your penmanship and make a career move in the country scene, this is it.
Leah Flanagan, Director of NATSIMO at APRA AMCOS, says that Resonate Country is an extension of NATSIMO’s annual Resonate songwriting program, albeit with a country-twist.
Resonate Country
- Open to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander APRA AMCOS members
- Applications close midnight November 20
- Apply here
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The program is a means for connecting mid-career and established Aboriginal and Torres Strait songwriters and producers with top producers and writers in the Australian country music industry.
Incredible artists like Gling Hunt, Joey Leigh Wagtail, Kyarna Cruse, Luke Peacock, Maddi Colville Walker, and Warren H Williams will collaborate with successful entrants, with more names to come.
Showcase your music at Tamworth Country Music Festival
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The program is offering three positions to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander APRA AMCOS members across Australia, with applications closing at midnight on November 20. In addition to the songwriting intensive, there will also be showcases at Tamworth Country Music Festival on January 23 to 25.
Resonate Country will focus on refining songwriting skills and collaborating with music experts, and it will also “provide a platform for further discussion with other sectors on the lack of Indigenous representation across the commercial country and screen music industries,” Leah says.
“Through bringing these communities together, we can work to address the inequities and strategically create pathways and opportunities for collaboration and development to ensure our artists have the same employment opportunities across all sectors of the music industry.”
With Indigenous country artists facing unique challenges in gaining visibility in the music industry, NATSIMO have created a program to address these challenges – not just providing spaces for musicians to create in, but also paving pathways beyond the rehearsal room.
Collaborate with country music industry leaders
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“Resonate Country is the first songwriting program of its kind that is bringing a large number of Indigenous country songwriters together to collaborate with highly regarded music creators from the Australian and intentional country music communities, like Phil Barton and Matt Fell,” Leah says.
“The fact that we are holding it at Australia’s premier country festival in Tamworth means that we can support our artists looking to have successful shows and relationships with the festival, especially given it is an area with a very large Indigenous population with many prominent country artists that have only very ad hoc involvement with the festival over many years.”
What better way to learn how to refine your craft than from some of the best in the country music scene? Leah places an emphasis on the significance of these collaborations in the program and how they can shape an artist’s career long after the program is over.
“We know how difficult a sustainable music career can be”
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“We’ve been very fortunate to have had support from incredibly successful non-Indigenous musicians,” Leah continues. “[They] also take their learnings from our programs that they apply into their own practice and industry liaisons. These two-way learning relationships have certainly led to more employment opportunities and attachments to other programs and initiatives for many of our program participants outside of our NATSIMO annual programming.”
Ultimately, Resonate Country is a space for musicians and artists to connect with others within an industry that throws up more than anyone’s fair share of hurdles. “We have a very proactive team of experienced musicians and songwriters [involved in the program],” Leah says. “[They] know firsthand how difficult it can be to have sustainable music careers.”
A vital opportunity that seeks to open doors for musicians and help shape an industry into one of stronger, louder voices for Indigenous Australians in the country music scene, Resonate Country is helping to turn up the volume of the songs we need to hear.
NATSIMO’s Mentorships programs
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As well as programs like Resonate Country, NATSIMO also offers a series of mentorships for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander members, such as the Screen Composer Mentorship and Producer/Engineer Mentorship.
“The mentorships are designed to support our writers wanting to develop their compositional and production skills further,” Leah says. “The goal is to see more of our artists collaborating, creating and being employed across all the sectors of the wider music industry, in particular production and screen music industries.
“We carefully curate collaborators who show an interest in being part of broader discussions around addressing inequity for Indigenous musicians, whilst also being proactive in developing solutions by co-designing programs and advocacy with our team,” Leah says.
The Mentorships are one-of-a-kind opportunities to develop industry standard skills through flexible learning models and practical engagement.
The mentorships will begin in March 2025, with the Screen Composition Mentorship running until May (3-month period) and the Production/Engineering Mentorship until April (6-week period).
Applications for the mentorships are open now until 11:59pm AEDT Friday 29 November and you can apply here.
Apply to Resonate Country before midnight November 20 here.
