Boomerang Festival Founder Honoured

Roberts also heads indigenous programming at the Sydney Opera House and was a director of the Lighting the Sails for this year’s Vivid Festival.

She was creative director of the Awakening segment at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. Roberts championed the mainstream appeal of the country’s 60,000-year-old indigenous culture by founding modern-day events such as the Dreaming Festival and the Aboriginal National Theatre Trust. The Boomerang festival is held concurrently with Bluesfest Byron Bay on its site, but is currently on a crowd-funding campaign to be a stand-alone event. The honour was bestowed as part of the Queen’s Birthday Honours List, published June 13, in which 771 Australians were lauded.

Jazz-soul singer, actor and TV presenter Kate Ceberano, one-time teen prodigy who this year marks her 35th year in the business, was made a member of the Order of Australia (AM). Ceberano was artistic director of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival between 2012 and 2014. Her numerous charity works include being ambassador for the National Breast Cancer Foundation.

Also awarded an AM was entertainment lawyer Robert McCormack of Sydney firm TressCox Lawyers. Specialising in live and musical theatre, he has set up legal requirements for virtually every major theatre production held in Australia since 1985. He also reps the live sector’s peak body, Live Performance Australia. F.J. Holden, who emerged as frontman of retro-50s platinum certified band Ol’55 in the mid-70s, received the OAM (Medal of the Order of Australia) for his charity and community work.