MOMENTUM Commission Winner Announced

Tasmanian guitarist and composer Julius Schwing is the recipient of the Australian Music Centre’s MOMENTUM Commission: Composing lutruwita, the Australian Music Centre announced today. The commission will see the creation of a new improvisation-based work for guitar and trumpet.

Julius Schwing is an improvising guitarist and composer from Bruny Island, Tasmania (lutruwita), whose distinct voice is shaped by the elements and landscapes around his home in Adventure Bay. His proposed work meets the Commission’s call for music that responds to some aspect of life in Tasmania. Inspired by the natural landscape, Julius’s work will deal with the natural cycles of the coast of Fluted Cape, south-east of Adventure Bay.

This is Schwing’s first commission. His new work for guitar and trumpet named Crumbles:Fluted will draw upon the many seasonal, weather, melodic and rhythmic cycles present within nature, especially those around Fluted Cape, Bruny Island. In developing the work, Julius will visit the Cape, listening and making field recordings of the dramatic landscape. The work itself will demonstrate a signature approach to rhythm and melody free from traditional metric conventions and will form part of a larger suite of works inspired by Fluted Cape.

The work is slated for future release on his independent label Isthmus Music, as well as a site-specific performance along the shorelines of Fluted Cape. Backed by an anonymous supporter, the Composing lutruwita round of the MOMENTUM Commissions aims to address the underrepresentation of Tasmanian composers in Australian music. Composing lutruwita called for new works that responded to an aspect of life in Tasmania. The call attracted a competitive pool of 21 Tasmanian creators, marking an increase from four Tasmanian applications in the previous national-based Commission, many of which represented composer-performers, improvisors, and unique projects inviting use of electronic components.

The Australian Music Centre’s MOMENTUM Commissions connects Australian creators with the support of private philanthropists. Recent recipients have included: Christine Pan, Aaron Wyatt, Connor D’Netto, Maria Grenfell, Reuben Lewis and Helen Svoboda.

Future MOMENTUM Commissions calls for works will open in 2025. The Australian Music Centre invites expressions of interest to support future iterations of the MOMENTUM Commissions.