Country Music Association Of Australia Announces Return Of Achiever Awards

The Country Music Association of Australia (CMAA) has rebooted its Achiever Awards.

The acknowledgements announced by the awards will be revealed on Saturday, 16 November, before the awards themselves will be presented at the CMAA’s Achiever Awards Presentation Night on Saturday, 23 November, at JMC Academy in Sydney. Award presentations and acoustic performances will take place throughout the night.

In addition to the awards, CMAA has announced a country music panel that will take place before the event – the Industry Symposium, which will be held hours before the awards at the same venue – and feature panellists including Allan Caswell, Nardia Drayton, Will Day, Michael Carpenter, Abbie Ferris, Lindsay Waddington, Lyn Taylor, and Perrin Finlay-Brown.

The symposium begins at 12 pm, and the awards will take place from 7 pm onwards. The big day is expected to wrap up around 10 pm AEDT.

The Achiever Awards are described as “non-competitive acknowledgements of individuals or groups” who have contributed significantly to Australian country music – they can be contemporary or legacy artists – and are split into two categories. They are:

Legacy Artists: awards handed out to figures who have contributed to the country music industry in Australia for over 30 years.

Contemporary Artists: awards handed out to figures who have excelled at a high level or contributed significantly to the country music industry in Australia over the last twelve months.

The categories are:

• Historic Achiever

• Legacy Artist

• Legacy Songwriter

• Legacy Musician

• Legacy Industry

• Contemporary Achiever

• Contemporary Media Achiever

• Young Achiever (under the age of 21)

• Musician of the Year

• Creative Industries Achiever of the Year

The winners will be chosen by the CMAA Board. Tickets for the symposium and Achiever Awards are on sale now via Humanitix.

A press release notes that both events will be catered with finger food and limited drinks on arrival, with additional beverages available for purchase.