DISAPPOINTED Canberra impresario Richard Johnson, recipient of the Award for Excellence in Experimental Music at this year’s ART Music Awards in Sydney, has been knocked back for funding for his ‘SoundOut’ Festival of Experimental and Improvised Music.

Johnson, acknowledged at both the national and state levels during the event staged jointly between APRA AMCOS and the Australian Music Centre for his ‘passion within the experimental arts and his promotion of improvising musicians’, has written an angry letter to his supporters today describing news that SoundOut would not receive 2016 funding from Arts ACT as “a huge blow” and asking them to write to Chief Minister Andrew Barr and Arts Minister Joy Burch.

“Given the lack of empathy from said Government then I cannot be sure that we will even get any money at all,” Johnson wrote, adding, “This of course puts me in the dilemma of having to fund ‘SoundOut’ myself and though I would entertain this fact when I was employed (recently retrenched due to fed go public service cuts) I cannot do this now, and there are many international artists that have booked tickets to come already.”

Johnson told “CityNews” this morning that he was trying with “fingers crossed” to obtain funding through Events ACT, but said, “I am getting tired of pushing and almost on the verge of abandoning SoundOut given this.”

He confirmed with “CityNews” that SoundOut had received funding through artsACT before, but then when he sent in the notification of the awards received to the office, he was told they were not sure it could be used in the assessment process, as by that stage the grants were all in.

It is hard to work out where ‘SoundOut’ might have gone wrong. Although admittedly a cutting-edge and experimental event, it has been publicly acknowledged at the national level.

As Johnson told us this morning, “the festival has an international reputation as being one of innovation and artistic merit but not a Canberra one? … go figure.”