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Prince’s Final Australian Shows Nominated For Helpmanns
Prince’s Piano & A Microphone Tour, in February 2016 through Dainty Group and ICO ApS, is among those nominated for the July 25 Helpmann Awards at Sydney’s Lyric Theatre.
Photo: AP Photo/F. Carter Smith
Prince performs before a sold-out audience in Houston.
The sold-out tour saw Prince and his band follow two-hour arena shows immediately after with lengthier, last-minute club jam sessions. The nominations were announced June 20 by trade body Live Performance Australia (LPA) at events in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane. Also up for best international contemporary concert were Brian Wilson Live At The Palais Theatre (Bluesfest Touring), Florence And The Machine (Laneway Presents & Chugg Entertainment), and Fleetwood Mac’s On With The Show booked through Live Nation.
The Helpmanns’ 40 categories cover comedy, cabaret, opera, classical, children’s presentation, dance, physical theatre and musicals. LPA’s Melbourne-based chief executive, Evelyn Richardson, cited “a remarkable year for live performances in Australia… with more than 18 million people attending shows across the country and ticket revenues of $1.5 billion (US$1.12 billion).”
Vying for best contemporary music festival are the 27th Bluesfest Byron Bay (produced by Bluesfest), St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival (Laneway Presents & Chugg Entertainment), Tasmania’s winter solstice celebration Dark Mofo (MONA) and Adelaide’s world music WOMADelaide 2016 (Womadelaide Foundation). Vance Joy’s triumphant return to Australia after major tours through North America and Europe with The Fire And The Flood Tour in April 2016 was one of four noms for best Australian contemporary concert.
It was produced by Frontier Touring, Unified and Village Sounds. Another acclaimed production was A State of Grace: The Music of Tim and Jeff Buckley. Martha Wainwright, Steve Kilbey of The Church and NYC-based Gods And Monsters were part of a stellar cast paying tribute in a series of shows produced by Gaynor Crawford Presents, Kirsten Siddle and The State of Grace Company.
The contemporary music panel of promoters, agents, musicians and media garnered enough votes to include EDM act Flight Facilities’ performance with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra at Melbourne Festival (Flight Facilities, MSO, Melbourne Festival) and opera-trained pop singer-songwriter Kate Miller-Heidke’s team-up with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and visual artist Amy Gebhardt at the Dark Mofo festival (Dark Mofo, Miller-Heidke, TSO, Amy Gebhardt) for inclusion in the category.