Celia Pacquola, Fred Leone and Henry Wagons To Host 2023 APRA Awards

The 2023 APRA Awards will be hosted by comedian Celia Pacquola and artists Fred Leone and Henry Wagons.

The 2023 APRA Awards will take place on 30 March in Sydney. 16 Award Categories will be presented with the APRA Song of the Year considered the music award the highlight of the event.

Previous winners over the awards’ 32-year history include; Powderfinger’s Passenger, Neil Murray’s My Island Home, Sia’s Chandelier, Kasey Chambers’ Not Pretty Enough, Wally De Backer’s Somebody that I Used to Know, and Yothu Yindi’s Treaty among other Australian classics.

Chameleon Celia Pacquola is a stand-up comedian, writer and actor who springs between stage and screen, and has become one of our best-loved and most in-demand performers. In 2016 Celia co-created, co-wrote and starred in the smash hit comedy Rosehaven with Luke McGregor, for which she won the 2017 Best Performance in a Television Comedy at the AACTAs. Music and comedy audiences would know Celia from her appearances on Spicks and Specks, The Project and Have You Been Paying Attention?

Joining Celia is Fred Leone, a Butchulla Songman, language custodian, and ground-breaking, award-winning artist who works across genres and mediums to bring a distinctly original voice to his performances and recordings. Fred is the founder of Queensland’s only Indigenous owned and operated record label Impossible Odds Records. His guest appearance singing in Butchulla on his cousin Birdz’s track Bagi-la-m Bargan helped see the song become a hit, with close to two million streams, sync placements, a spot at #30 on triple j’s hottest 100 in 2021 and a Screen Music Award for Best Original Song Composed for the Screen.

Rounding out the vibrant hosting trio is Henry Wagons. Often described as a “professor of song” and instigator of the Australian movement of indie-country music, Henry’s reach spans across many festival stages and venues as well as being the voice behind the iconic national double j radio program Tower of Song. Henry has released three solo albums, and seven records with his band Wagons across his twenty-five years in music, many of which have been critically acclaimed and awarded. Henry is a master craftsman of the stage and carves out his place on it like no other.

Back at the helm as Musical Director of the APRA Music Awards is Grammy Award winning producer, and screen composer François ‘Franc’ Tétaz. Franc will curate the live performances for the awards, weaving his magic to mix and match music collaborators who will put their spin on the five nominated Peer-Voted Song of the Year compositions.

2023 APRA MUSIC AWARDS

Thursday 27 April
ICC Sydney, Gadigal land.
With host Celia Pacquola and guest presenters Fred Leone and Henry Wagons
And Musical Director François Tétaz

Stay updated with your free Noise11.com daily music news email alert. Subscribe to Noise11 Music News here

Be the first to see NOISE.com’s newest interviews and special features on YOUTUBE and updated regularly. See things first SUBSCRIBE here: Noise11 on YouTube SUBSCRIBE