APRA AMCOS Awards Lorrae McKenna Lighthouse Award

Lorrae McKenna of Melbourne artist management agency Our Golden Friend, has been awarded the Lighthouse Award by APRA AMCOS which rewards “passion, creativity and integrity” and grants Lorrae a  $5000 boost to the business. 

Lorrae set up Our Golden Friend in 2015, after working with Rae Harvey’s Crucial Music agency and then Remote Control Records. Lorrae has helped guide the careers of artists including Jade Imagine, Jess Ribeiro, Poppongene, RVG and Elizabeth. In 2017, McKenna expanded Our Golden Friend with the announcement of a joint venture deal with Island Records and Universal Music Australia.

We had a chat with Lorrae in mid-2018, and some of this passion certainly shone though:
“I will work with music from pretty much any genre, I just have to connect with it. I’m really aware of the fact that Our Golden Friend is a label in it’s very early stages, I don’t want to pigeonhole myself into a certain sound or music that we’re working on. I just want to work with artists who are creating from an authentic place. If I hear something and I have a personal connection to it then I feel like I will work really hard. I need to be connected to the music, really love the music to want to work on it. And I love lots of different genres so that’s why I’m not looking for one specific type of music to sign.”

The Lighthouse award judge, Emily Ulman, told APRA “Lorrae is tireless in her pursuit for equal representation and inclusion (in all its forms), passionate beyond hours in the day for the acts she represents, and endlessly generous with her time to help and support others. We as a music industry are better for her being in it.”

The award is a tribute to Linda Gebar, who died tragically in October 2008 soon after the birth of her second child. She was one of the few female managers in the 90s, and worked with The Killjoys, Frente and The Blackeyed Susans. She also booked the Punters Club, worked at PBS FM, had a record label and worked at APRA AMCOS. The Lighthouse Award represents APRA AMCOS’ commitment to addressing the gender imbalance within the music industry and encouraging women to pursue a career in music.

Full press release available here