Melba Opera Trust is proud to offer the Michael Bertram Composition Award, a biennial initiative established to encourage and support contemporary operatic and vocal composition in the classical tradition.
Funded through the generous bequest of Michael Bertram — composer and past Chair of the Melba Conservatorium of Music — the Award honours his lifelong passion for music and his commitment to nurturing the future of Australian composition.
Every two years the Award will support either the creation of a new vocal or operatic work, or enable the inaugural performance of a new composition. While the specific nature of the supported work will vary from year to year, the Award will always uphold Bertram’s vision of giving voice to new operatic and vocal music.
At Melba Opera Trust, we believe deeply in the value of commissioning and performing Australian works. The Michael Bertram Composition Award is one small but significant way we can contribute to expanding the operatic landscape and ensuring that Australian stories and voices are heard on the stage.
ANNOUNCING THE 2026 MICHAEL BERTRAM COMPOSITION AWARD
Following a competitive application and interview process, we are delighted to announce the inaugural recipient of the Michael Bertram Composition Award is Lewis Ingham.
Based in Victoria, Lewis has studied contemporary composition and is currently completing his PhD in composition at the University of Melbourne under the supervision of acclaimed Australian composer Elliott Gyger.
Supported by the Award, Lewis will compose a 15-minute song cycle, drawing on themes of ecology and family memories in a uniquely Australian way. The new song cycle will be workshopped with the 2026 Melba Artists before receiving its premiere at a dedicated concert.
Through this Award, Melba is proud to be contributing to the creation of new Australian music in a small, meaningful way.
Stay tuned for updates and read more about Composing for the lyric voice on page 10 of the recent edition of The Melba magazine.
AN AWARD HONOURING MICHAEL’S VISION
Michael Bertram (1935-2021) was born in the UK. He won a choral scholarship to Lichfield Cathedral at the age of eight and then qualified to enter the Royal Academy of Music on a pianoforte scholarship.
Emigrating to Australia in 1952, Bertram continued his piano studies and was a state finalist in the then ABC’s Concerto and Vocal competition, performing with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. He regularly broadcast as a soloist over the ABC in both Perth and Melbourne.
Turning in later years to composition, Bertram’s overall piano output has been reviewed in Larry Sitsky’s Australian Piano Music of the Twentieth Century (Praeger, 2005) and Australian Chamber Music with Piano (ANU, 2011).
Works by this composer include a Mass (2002) for choir, soloists, organ, and cello, performed by the Astra Choir in 2005, and piano pieces on the disc Fantaisie-Sonata, The Michael Kieran Harvey Collection, issued by Move Records in 2016. Kieran Harvey has since described the Fantaisie-Sonata Second Movement as ‘music of a fragile, quasi-improvised, inspired and intimate beauty that transcends categorization and marks Michael Bertram as a truly original voice unafraid to traverse the gamut of tonality and atonality.’
Michael Bertram is a Life Member of the Australian National Academy of Music.