Australian Music News, Monday 30th August

Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu has been named act of the year at the Indigenous Music Awards in Darwin. He also won the DVD/film clip award for his song Gurrumul History.

It was standing room only in the Royal Albert Hall as the Sydney Symphony Orchstra performed at the BBC Proms, under the baton of Vladimir Ashkenazy.

Sydney business leaders have called for the demolition of the Sydney Entertainment Centre to allow for an expansion of the exhibition and convention space at Darling Harbour.

Organisers of the Homebake festival, the largest annual celebration of Australian pop and rock music, have announced it will be not happen this year because of an inability to find a suitable headline act. However, the troubled Pyramid Rock Festival will return.

Catherine Bottrill, head honcho of British focus group Julie's Bicycle, will be in Brisbane on September 9 to share the organisation's findings on how touring bands can do the planet a favour by cutting down on their fuel and other energy usage.

Disband after 21 years, Brisbane's Powderfinger has finally arrived at a core setlist of 20 songs for their Sunsets tour, which starts in Newcastle on Wednesday.

Opera Australia's artistic director, Lyndon Terracini, has just confirmed that OA would stage The Ring, Wagner's 15-hour (four-day) epic in 2013—the bicentenary of the German composer's birth. This production will constitute the company's entire spring season.