News November 5, 2018

Nominations for the 2018 ARIA Emerging Artist Scholarship are open

ARIA and Virgin Australia have teamed up to announce that submissions for the second annual ARIA Emerging Artist Scholarship are now open for 2018.

Any Australian artist represented by a current ARIA member who hasn’t been previously nominated for an ARIA Award category with an album or single before the 2018 awards are eligible for the scholarship.

The inaugural winner of last years scholarship was Brisbane’s indie pop group and well-loved quartet Cub Sport. With their win, the band managed to secure travel support for both the domestic and international legs of their 2018 world tour.

ARIA secured their partnership with Virgin Australia in order to acknowledge how big of a role travel and flying plays in building the career or artists. This partnership was built to assist and support an emerging artist’s domestic and international travel in order to help them launch their career.

Dan Rosen, Chief Executive ARIA said, “ARIA is thrilled to announce the return of the ARIA Emerging Artist Scholarship as part of the 2018 ARIA Awards celebrations. We are also very excited to welcome back Virgin Australia as our major partner for the award.

“The applications last year were incredibly strong and a great indication of the quality and depth of our local recording artists. We look forward to working with Virgin Australia again to help more local artists achieve their musical ambitions on the international stage.”

Virgin Australia Group Executive Brand, Marketing and Public Affairs, Danielle Keighery, said the airline was thrilled to partner with ARIA to offer this scholarship opportunity to an emerging artist again.

“Virgin Australia is a proud supporter of the Australian music industry. We offer individual artists 64 kilograms of checked baggage when travelling domestically, and continue to find ways to ensure that Australian music is an integral part of our in-flight entertainment services. We continue to focus on making travel as easy and affordable as possible for individual and emerging artists as they break into the industry,” Ms Keighery said.

This is an incredible opportunity for all emerging artists, and to enter, all an ARIA member needs to do to enter the 2018 ARIA Emerging Artist Scholarship is to tell them what their proposed 2019 promotional strategy is, including a US tour plan and a brief description of how ARIA and Virgin Australia can help them to achieve these tour plans and ambitions.

All submissions can be sent through to awards@aria.com.au by 16 November 2018 for judging by ARIA and Virgin Australia representatives. Please note that entries are restricted to two per member.

This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.

TIO