Murnane Wins At
NZ Managers Awards

Andy Murnane of Frequency Media Group was awarded manager of the year at the 2013 Music Managers Awards May 15 at Auckland’s K’Rd before a 150-strong crowd of managers and artists.

The event was organised by the Music Managers Forum NZ and PPNZ Music Licensing.

Murnane won for his work with urban acts Home Brew and Aaradhna. He also trumped the “Outside the Box” category for organising a 48-hour album release party for Homebrew, which attracted unprecedented media attention and led to a No. 1 debut for the hip-hop group’s self-titled album last May.

It went on to win best urban/hip-hop album at last year’s New Zealand Music Awards.

Teresa Patterson of CRS Management had three wins for her work with rock band Six60. These were for Best Independent Tour for the band’s sold-out national dates, International Achievement for its growing presence in the American and European markets, and Online Achievement for the re-launch of the act’s website, which came second in the Umbraco international design awards.

Reggae band Hope Road’s co-founder and co-singer Ria Hall won the self-managed category. Janette Searle was declared the year’s best upcoming manager for her work with Sola Rosa, the fusion project by producer Andrew Spraggon that scored global radio airplay, compilation inclusion and sync deals.

Rachel Dawick was lauded the MMF Mentoring Success Story for researching and collecting stories of NZ women from the 1800s and turning them into songs for The Boundary Riders project.

The MMF’s members voted the Australasian Performing Right Association as Industry Champion for deriving more income for artists and songwriters through performance fees.

This year, the awards split the Best Venue category into two: The Sawmill in the town of Leigh was best small venue, and Auckland’s Powerstation was named best large venue with 750-plus capacity.