APRA Awards

Two of our country's brightest young talents were last night crowned songwriters of the year at an APRA awards more obsessed by Australia's music history than future.

In amoung all the hype surrounding the Australasian Performing Right Association's list of the top 30 local songs of the past 75years, brother and sister duo Jesse and Ella Hooper of Killing Heidi - aged 20 and 18 years respectively - were last night voted the country's premier songsmiths by an academy of their composing peers.
In front of 850 music industry heavyweights at a lavish awards ceremony staged at the Convention Centre of the Royal Randwick racecourse, the pair took the prize fr work on the band's hit debut album of last year, Reflector.
"I think these awards are more personal," Ella Hooper said in comparing the APRAs to that other industry award night, the ARIAs. "These are about getting noted as a songwriter, which is important to me because I'm not just a performer - I'm a songwriter."
During the acceptance speech, Jesse Hooper took the opportunity to get political. "Stop cutting the funding to the ABC, guys," said the former winner of the Triple J talent quest, Unearthed.