Nominations Now Open for 2015 Australian Jazz Bell Awards; Ceremony to Take Place in April

Nominations are open from today for the 2015 Australian Jazz Bell Awards, which will be awarded in Melbourne at the prestigious Regent Ballroom on Thursday 30 April.

Celebrating its 13th year in 2015, the Jazz Bell Awards are the only jazz-specific awards in Australia to acknowledge excellence in performance, creativity and presentation.

They honour the exceptional talent of the Australian jazz community and are widely recognised as the Australian jazz industry's most respected and highly anticipated awards.

The founder of the awards, jazz musician Albert Dadon AM, said: "Over the 12 years of the Jazz Bell Awards, I have never failed to be impressed by the exceptional talent of the jazz community in Australia. The quality of recordings sent in for nominations year after year always makes it a very difficult task for the judges choosing the finalists in each category."

The awards categories for 2015, which share a prize pool of $40,000 - $5,000 per category, are:

· Best Australian Jazz Vocal Album

· Best Australian Modern Jazz Album

· Best Australian Contemporary 'Avant-garde' Jazz Album

· Best Australian Trad Jazz Album

· Best Australian Jazz Song of the Year

· Best Australian Jazz Ensemble

· Young Australian Jazz Artist of the Year

· Graeme Bell Hall of Fame -- in recognition of an outstanding career

Nominations will close on Wednesday 11 February for the 2015 Australian Jazz Bell Awards. Nomination form and guidelines can be downloaded from www.bellawards.org.

Key figures from the Australian and international jazz scene will make up the judging panel. The diversity of their talents will ensure an exhaustive selection of winners for each of the categories.

The Australian Jazz Bell Awards recognise and encourage excellence in the performance, creativity, recording and presentation of jazz in Australia. In honour of one of the greats of Australian jazz - Graeme Bell, MBE, AO - the Australian Jazz Bell Awards are informally known as "the Bell Awards".