With 18 major award categories that are voted on by industry members, 2023 South Australian Music Awards spotlight the diverse and incredible local talent on display within the state.
"South Australia is at heart a creative state and the music talent coming out of this state is incredibly exciting and I don't envy the panel of independent judges this year," shares Music SA CEO, Christine Schloithe."MusicSA is very proud to host these awards each year on behalf of the South Australian contemporary music industry and we wish everyone all the best in all categories."
Read the list of 2023 SA Music Award nominees.
We'll be profiling a number of this year's nominees with our Spotlight On series, that continues with Alana Jagt, who is nominated for Best Solo Artist, Best Regional Artist, and Best Cover Art.
Jagt's dynamic rasp soars over her blend of stormy folk-rock noir that's refreshing yet somehow familiar. Born and raised on South Australia's Iron Triangle, Jagt cut her teeth as a teen playing keys and singing harmonies in her parents' ramshackle blues band.
After playing in the folk-duo Buffalo Boyfriend, Alana made her solo debut in 2017 with her 'Wilderness' EP that led to performances at local Adelaide haunt Grace Emily as well as Adelaide Guitar Festival plus national supports for Abbe May and Mick Thomas. Last year, Jagt released her debut album, 'Goodbye Grote Bollen'.
What's the elevator pitch version of your 2023 so far?
In 2022/ 2023, I released my debut album, 'Goodbye Grote Bollen' and toured that release, I was featured on Andrew Ford's Radio National 'The Music Show' and received positive reviews both nationally and internationally for that piece of work.
I was involved in both the Adelaide Guitar Festival main programming and 'On The Road' tours in 2023 and have enjoyed some great support shows with the likes of Darren Hanlon, Paul Dempsey, Tex Perkins, and Mick Thomas and the Roving Commission this year.
Biggest moment creatively you/ the band have had in 2023?
We played at Adelaide's Space Theatre as part of the main programming for Adelaide Guitar Festival 2023 with Freya Josephine-Hollick, that was pretty fun. It was late 2022 that I released and toured the album (which is where the eligibility for the SA Music Awards comes from this year), so if we count both 2022 and 2023 it's probably that and being featured on Radio National's 'The Music Show' for the album.
We played some fun shows across regional Victoria with my friend Grim Fawkner and his band as well when the album came out, that was great, I love playing shows in little regional towns.
Being a creative, artist, musician can be a lonely existence, so what does it mean to be nominated for a South Australian Music Award?
I wouldn't say that being a musician is a lonely existence because there are so many people doing the same thing within the local community with the same or similar experiences, BUT it is really nice to have been nominated for these awards of course.
I'm nominated for two Major awards (Best Solo Artist and Best Regional Artist), one Industry award (Best Cover Art) and one publicly voted award (Best Blues and Roots Artist) all up. With the Major and Industry awards in particular, it's great just to be shortlisted as a nominee, I know it must have been quite competitive as so many great SA people who I really respect released music in 2022/23, so yeah really stoked.
Regardless of who the winners are, and I never expect to win anything, I'm looking forward to celebrating some of South Australia's creatives and music industry professionals at the awards, because that's the point of awards nights at the end of the day (night)!
Fast forward to the awards ceremony; if your name is read out as winner who are you mentioning-thanking in your speech?
You'll have to wait and see if my name gets read out I guess.
How can folks best support independent musicians-bands?
Go to their gigs and BUY TICKETS IN ADVANCE, that's such a struggle in Adelaide and it drives me bonkers. Not to out myself here but the other week we played a regional show and had only sold about eight tickets in advance, decided to plunge ahead anyway, rocked up to the gig and it wound up being a full house – it's bloody stressful for the artists AND the venue all at once.
These audiences are going to wind up leading us to some early graves haha. You know I'm not sure if it's such an issue with some genres but folk music in SA can be hard in this area.
Also if you stumble across a local/ independent musician online whose music you enjoy please seek them out, engage with them on Spotify or iTunes or Bandcamp and on social media, and please at an absolute bare minimum like or comment on social media posts, even if you don't really care about the post, you'd be surprised how much a like or comment can really help in a really wide ranging way.
2024 is just around the corner; anything special you're brewing in the background you can share?
Working on new songs at the moment to be recorded in 2024 and released hopefully late next year/ early 2025. There might be a few little bonus releases via Bandcamp too.
What makes South Australian music unique?
I think it's the community, South Australia is pretty small so everyone pretty much knows each other and mostly eventually migrates to Adelaide for shows, and there's a lot of support and love here. Maybe that's another reason why I don't think being a musician is all that lonely?
There's no competition over gigs or anything like that here either, it's nice. And it's not all rainbows, nothing ever is! Of course you do get some frustrating people and things happening within the community as well, not everyone finds everyone a pleasure to work with, but for the most part South Australia is a little state that punches above its weight and the community is great.
I think it's also pretty amazing how many folks from regional backgrounds do really well when they come to the city and I kind of just want to highlight that, because it's important for little regional up-and-comers to see these folks doing well too and sometimes regional artists and venues are less visible even though they're incredible.
AND I'm definitely biased because I'm one of them (born in Whyalla, raised in the Mid-North, moved to Adelaide and now back in the Hills) but even at this Awards, off the top of my head we have DEM MOB, Ella and Sienna, Ellen Tefanis, Germein, Nathan May, Zaachariaha from Electric Fields, Matt from Street Legal, and it's awesome, there's definitely so many more folks I'm missing from that list too. SA is the little state that could.
The 2023 SA Music Awards will be staged at Woodville Town Hall (Adelaide) on 8 November.
