Announcing The 2022 APRA Professional Development Award Winners

We are incredibly excited to announce the APRA Professional Development Award winners for 2022: Gabriel Everett (Foley), William Philipson, Jessica Leov Edwards, Katie Sharp (KT Sharp), Joel Tashkof (choicevaughan) and Tali Jenkinson (Vallé). The talent pool this year was diverse, competitive and a solid reflection of the hunger within the Aotearoa music industry for knowledge, exposure and growth following two difficult years of Covd-19 restrictions.

Each taking home an award of $5,000.00 to contribute toward the next phase of their career, the recipients this year showcase an eclectic range of professional development opportunities. Spanning from international publisher pursuits and screen compomposer mentorships, to production and instrumental training, alongside tertiary study in video game composition and electro aucostic sound scaping.

An annonymus panel of industry experts assessed over 70 robust applications to determine the winners – a process that is both challenging and inspiring.

Speaking to the experience one of the annonymus panel members reflects “It was a great process being a part of the PDA judging panel. Hearing different takes on why someone needs development money and seeing other people’s angles on how they are going to use it was very educational. The calibre of entries was very high, and I was inspired by just how big a lot of Kiwi’s are thinking in this space.”