I am pleased to write this letter of support for Kelly Lovelady.

I have known Kelly since her early interactions with the Australian Music Centre in the mid-1990s, and I have followed the development of her career with great interest, and with great enthusiasm for whatever she undertakes.

The Australian Music Centre (AMC) is the national service organisation for Australian art music composers and sound artists, and undertakes a broad range of activities in supporting the sector, primarily through documentation, promotion, and dissemination of the works by AMC Represented Artists, and through various associated activities. In my role as CEO of the AMC I have been actively engaged in international contexts and networks, and have gained a perspective on how artists develop their careers, and the various international benchmarks that mark an artist’s progress in pursuing their art.

There are common qualities that indicate the potential for success of artists, who are increasingly mobile, and who develop their creative careers very much as global citizens. There is on the one hand the need to develop their craft to the highest levels, to learn the value of a commitment to doing the very best that they can. And added to this, a need to develop as human beings, develop a sense of resilience and persistence, of humility, and stamina, that enables them to navigate the various challenges that they face in pursuing a career as an artist.

But above all, I believe that as an artist one must also possess a commitment to service, to your peers, to those you collaborate with, and to the audiences that as a musician, one engages directly with. And this requires a strong social conscience, and a set of outstanding communication skills, which are at the very core of the best artists.

I write these thoughts as I think of Kelly’s progress as an artist over the many years I have known her, and her skill set and personal characteristics embrace all that I outline above. She has shown astounding perseverance and single- mindedness in pursuing her goals, with a very clear vision of the direction that she takes in doing so.

Kelly has been a great advocate for Australian music, programming it at every opportunity, and in more recent years she has been energetically commissioning works, both from established and emerging composers. Her establishment of Ruthless Jabiru, a chamber orchestra whose programs centre around new and existing repertoire by living composers, has provided a vehicle to effectively pursue this, and it also provides a vehicle for professional Australian musicians based in the UK to come together to showcase their exceptional talents.

As the ensemble’s founding Artistic Director Kelly has demonstrated outstanding leadership and drive in achieving the success of Ruthless Jabiru in a comparatively short time. And secured the support of the players, and of many others, to achieve this. Her capacity as a leader and a facilitator has been evident since I met her, so I have not at all been surprised by what she has achieved.

There is one final characteristic that I would like to highlight in regard to Kelly, regarding her capacity as a consummate collaborator. In the creative world, finding a balance between expressing one’s own ego and finding ways to work with others, can be a challenge for some artists. Not so with Kelly, who embraces, as a core philosophy, the concept of collaboration – with artists, administrative and managerial people, production and technical people, and supporters of various kinds, including the audiences that she serves.

Kelly is an ambitious and highly capable musician and director with demonstrated international success. I trust that what I write of her communicates the high regard that I have, for her, and for her activities. I am pleased to recommend her in any capacity, and commend her to you for your support.