The South Australian Music Awards has doled out seven Industry Awards at an event held last week.

The first round of winners of the 2022 South Australian Music Awards were announced at a small ceremony held at Memphis Slim’s House of Blues last week.

Seven industry awards were announced, with minister for arts Andrea Michaels, who attended the event, saying the awards “celebrate those behind the artists, the unsung managers, engineers, venues, technicians, graphic designers, festival and event promoters, those who are the backbone of the South Australian music industry”.

The award winners are Wundenberg’s Recording Studios for Best Studio, which the business also won last year; Paloma Ellery, the artist behind SONS OF ZÖKU’s SÜN artwork for Best Cover Art; Elsy Wameyo for Best Engineer/Producer and Best Music Video, the latter of which she won alongside Richard Coburn for her ‘Nilotic’ video; Adelaide Youth Orchestras for Best Music Educator; Lachlan Sheehan, who works at The Gov, for Best Live Technician; and Space Jams for Best Small Festival/Event.

There are still two more industry awards to be announced at the Thursday, 17 November SAM Awards event, Best Innovation and Best Manager, along with the full suite of people’s choice awards.

“It’s really nice to be part of a festival that started in such a dark time,” says Josh Morphett, founder of Space Jams. “I don’t like saying that, but [COVID] was pretty dark for musos and music lovers. But it was great to see Space Jams come to life and it now continuing to grow and it doesn’t really happen without the SA music community and that feels so strong despite COVID and it feels special to be one of the pieces of pie that continues to strengthen it.”

L—R: Music SA CEO Christine Schloithe, Space Jams’ Josh Morphett and minister for arts Andrea Michaels

Music SA CEO Christine Schloithe says this year’s SAM Awards have continued the programs growth trajectory.

“The popularity of the SA Music Awards grows each year – there are increasing numbers of submissions, finalists and award categories,” Christine says.

“This year, we’ve added new categories for Best Regional Venue/ Music Activation and Regional Artist, because it’s so important to acknowledge that SA’s talent extends well past city boundaries.”

This is the first year the SAM Awards has broken its ceremony into two event, which caused some confusion and consternation amongst the local music community. Christine says this decision was made so as to not have “industry and audiences…  sit through excessive hours of awards”.

Tickets are still available for the 2022 SAM Awards, available now at the website. Held at the Hindley Street Music Hall, doors open to the public at 6:30pm.