“Apologies for the belated thank you for giving me the opportunity to hear and experience the wonderful music and songs at last Saturdays showcase concert for Mike Silverwood Memorial Song Writing Award.  And to contribute my little bit.

Some great songs and lovely performances. Congratulations to the winners, John and Floyd, and to the winner of the ‘tunes’ prize (whose name I didn’t quite catch).

Over-all a fantastic night with a beautifully supportive audience. Thank you to the David’s, Peter, Roger, “Elizabeth” (?) and all who contributed to making it happen. May it go from strength to strength.”

— Ian Paulin

The Folk Federation’s annual Song and Tune Writing Awards for 2018 are over.  The awards were announced at a wonderful concert on October 20th at Wesley Hall, with a wide range of acts and tunes and songs in a variety of styles and covering many and varied topics, including some important issues such as Nauru, gambling, race relations in Tasmania, social justice and the rights of working people. The concert included seasoned performers and composers as well as “newcomers” stepping up and producing high quality performances.  We hope they are all encouraged in their future endeavours.

The results for 2018 are:

• Mike Silverwood Songwriting Award – John Hughes – “Only Weeds”
• Tune Award – CC Thornley – “Sentimental Rag”
• U-19 Award – Equal 1st – Floyd Taylor – “Wonder”
• U-19 Award – Equal 1st – Eve Cooper and Rupert Bullard – “Glow”
• People’s Choice Award – Floyd Taylor

Well done to all those who submitted entries and thank you for supporting this competition. Congratulations to the winners and thank you very much to those who make it all happen, particularly our Competition Co-ordinator, Peter Hicks, this year’s judges, Anna Graham and David Beniuk, Cathy Hutchinson, David Wanless and their team of helpers who organised and set up the hall for the concert and Roger Joseph for sound engineering and lights on the night.