June 11, 2022
Los Angeles, California
Off the back of the success of the 2021 G’Day AAA Arts Gala, a virtual gala that celebrated the diverse contributions made by Australians in advancing and strengthening the friendship between our two great countries through the arts, G’Day USA and the American Australian Association look forward to bringing this event back to life in Los Angeles in June, 2022.
The event provides a unique and intimate opportunity to cultivate this community by bringing together notable Americans and Australians to celebrate the exceptional contribution to the arts made by the 2022 Honorees. The Gala will deliver high-profile performances, presenters, a star-studded red-carpet for a night that cannot be missed.
For sponsorship inquiries, table and ticket availability please contact [email protected].
Proof of vaccination or negative test required for entry.
2022 HONOREES
Brian Grazer & Ron Howard
Innovation in Entertainment Award
Brian Grazer
Brian Grazer is an Oscar®, Golden Globe®, Emmy®, and Grammy® award-winning producer. His work has been nominated for 47 Oscars and 202 Emmys. He won the Best Picture Oscar for A Beautiful Mind, and is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life, and Face to Face: The Art of Human Connection.
Grazer’s feature film productions include tick, tick…Boom!, Apollo 13, American Gangster, 8 Mile, Frost/Nixon, Liar Liar, and Parenthood, as well as, the television series Genius: Aretha, Wu-Tang: An American Saga, Empire, 24, Arrested Development, and Friday Night Lights. Grazer has also produced numerous documentaries including the Grammy Award-winning Best Music Film The Beatles: 8 Days A Week, Lucy and Desi, The Day Sports Stood Still, and Rebuilding Paradise, among many others.
Currently, Grazer is producing a robust slate of film and television series including the upcoming features Thirteen Lives directed by Ron Howard, The Beanie Bubble staring Zach Galifianakis, and the documentary We Feed People profiling renown chef José Andrés and World Central Kitchen. He is also producing the upcoming television series Under The Banner of Heaven from Dustin Lance Black, the third season of Wu-Tang: An American Saga, the 4th installment of Genius, and the docuseries The Dynasty chronicling The New England Patriots, to name a few.
Ron Howard
Academy Award-winning filmmaker Ron Howard is one of this generation’s most popular directors. From the critically acclaimed Oscar-winning dramas A Beautiful Mind and Apollo 13 to the hit comedies Parenthood and Splash, he has created some of Hollywood’s most memorable films. Whether in front of or behind the camera, or for film, television or documentaries, Howard has been a part of many of the most significant projects in every decade since the 1960s.
A Beautiful Mind earned Howard an Oscar for Best Director and Best Picture, and also won for Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress. Howard has also been honored by numerous organizations and in March 2013, Howard was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame. In 2015, Howard was honored with a second star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, making him one of the select few to have been recognized with two stars.
Howard’s upcoming films include Thirteen Lives, about the rescue of twelve boys and their soccer coach from a flooded cave in Thailand, and the documentary feature We Feed People profiling the humanitarian work of renowned chef José Andrés and his World Central Kitchen.
2022 HONOREES
Isla Fisher
Excellence in the Arts Award
Isla Fisher
Isla Fisher has 36 years of film and TV experience. Born in the Middle Eastern country of Oman, Fisher’s family moved to Perth, Western Australia when she was a young girl. At the age of nine, Fisher was already appearing in commercials broadcast on Australian television. She then became best known for her role as ‘Shannon Reed’ in the popular soap, Home & Away. Fisher’s Hollywood breakthrough came with her critically-acclaimed performance as Vince Vaughn’s off-kilter love interest in the blockbuster, The Wedding Crashers. Other credits include: Gore Verbinski’s award-winning animated feature, Rango, with Johnny Depp, Baz Lurmann’s The Great Gatsby, Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals, the romantic comedy Definitely, Maybe, with co-star Ryan Reynolds, Now You See Me, opposite Mark Ruffalo, Jesse Eisenberg and Woody Harrelson, Hot Rod, with Andy Samberg, The Brothers Grimsby alongside her husband, Sacha Baron Cohen, Rebel Wilson and Penelope Cruz, and more recently, Blithe Spirit, with Judi Dench, Dan Stevens and Leslie Mann.
Fisher also studied the earliest form of theatrical comedy, Commedia dell’arte at the renowned L’école Jacques Lecoq performance school in Paris. In June 2016, she made her debut as a best-selling children’s author with the ‘Marge in Charge’ book series. She has just wrapped Strays, staring alongside Will Ferrell and Jamie Foxx and is heading back to Australia later this year to shoot the second season of the series, Wolf Like Me, directed by Abe Forsythe and co-starring Josh Gad, for Stan Australia and Peacock.
2022 HONOREES
Tushar Apte
Rising Star Award
Tushar Apte
Tushar Apte is an Australian writer/producer/composer based in Los Angeles. He has written and produced a string of successful releases in the U.S. and overseas with some of the world’s biggest artists including Demi Lovato, Blackpink, BTS, Zayn, Nicki Minaj, Noah Cyrus and many more.
Tushar is also an accomplished Film and TV composer, having composed on shows for
NBC (“Zooey’s Incredible Playlist”), BET (award winning “The Bobby Brown Story” composed with Babyface), ITV, BBC (“Walking With Dinosaurs”, and others), Netflix and many more.
ENTERTAINMENT
Electric Fields
ELECTRIC FIELDS, the potent musical project of multi-talented artist and performer Zaachariaha Fielding and producer-composer Michael Ross, brings together their brilliance, channelling something very special. These two self-described “feminine brothers” show real strength. Their latest song ‘Catastrophe’ – born as a love song and landing as a devastation ballad, is a soundtrack for connecting the duo’s spirit, catching them as the ground disappears beneath their feet. Their prior single ‘Gold Energy’ embraces their queerness and shares Zaachariaha’s traditional language exploring an evolving sonic shift on this ebullient new single.
Fielding, who’s been awarded Best Live Voice for the National Live Music Awards for the last 2 years, sings “Kurunpa nganampa liprulala” in one of the Anangu languages during the pre-chorus, which translates to “Adjust your spirit, correct your energy.”. This contentment takes commitment: it’s about fierce optimism. And when Zaachariah dances, – an integral part of their live show – he becomes the spirit creature for audiences who let their freak flag fly.
Morgan Evans
Australian-born Warner Music Nashville breakout artist Morgan Evans is well versed in launching a country music career from across the world. His 2018 U.S. debut Things That We Drink To arrived Top 10 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart and features his Gold-certified No. 1 debut single “Kiss Somebody,” which he also performed on NBC’s TODAY and ABC’s The Bachelorette.
Named as one of Country Radio Seminar’s elite 2020 New Faces of Country Music, he’s forged a path as one of the genre’s most promising up-and-coming stars, named to People’s elite “Ones To Watch” list, MusicRow’s “Next Big Thing” list and Bobby Bones’ “Class of 2018,” receiving additional recognition as an emerging artist by CMT, SiriusXM, Pandora, Rolling Stone, Billboard, Bobby Bones, The Tennessean and more. An award-winning country force in Australia, he most recently reached new heights by topping both the Aussie Pop and Country charts with “Day Drunk.” Known for his thrilling, one-of-a-kind performances, he has previously toured with artists like Taylor Swift, Dan + Shay, Cole Swindell, Old Dominion, Rascal Flatts and Chris Young and crisscrossed the globe on his 2019 World Tour, where he shared his acclaimed live show with sold-out audiences spanning eight countries across three continents.
Jess Hitchcock
Performing throughout Australia and overseas with Kate Miller-Heidke over the last 6 years, Jess has also joined forces in powerful performances with Paul Kelly (2019, 2020, 2021), Archie Roach (2020) and Tina Arena (2021). Jess Hitchcock devoted the last decade to working with Australia’s Indigenous opera company Short Black Opera with Deborah Cheetam AO as a performer, composer and instructor. Jess has also proudly contributed to Mission Songs Project and Dhungala Children’s Choir.
In 2016, Jess was awarded a prestigious Green Room Award for Best Female in Opera Australia’s The Rabbits. In 2019 Jess received the Indigenous Music and Media Professional Development Award, Smuggler of Light. Jess has just recently finished her debut season with Bangarra Dance theatre, starring in their new production of ‘Wudjang: Not the Past’. Jess is now devoting the rest 2022 to releasing and touring her anticipated studio album.
