Sam Boon nominated for Jazz ARIA award

Sam Boon was part of the team who worked on Sinj Clarke's album The Height Of Love which has been nominated for an Australian Recording Industry Association award.

Boon worked on the strings and horn arrangement for the album as well as playing saxophone.

He said the ARIA nomination was "pretty unexpected".

"I got a text from someone congratulating me and then I looked at the website and realised it was us who was nominated," Boon said. "I thought he was joking."

Boon said most albums involved a lot of moving parts, but he said this one particularly had "a huge team of people from different engineers and other members of the band" working together.

"It's nice to [have] recognition for something that was a lot of hard work," he said.

Boon, a former Ballarat High student, moved back from Melbourne during the COVID-19 pandemic.

He said he liked working in the jazz genre because it was not as clearly defined as other styles of music.

"It's more expressive, especially as an instrumentalist," Boon said.

"Even the ARIA nominations of the jazz category ... the albums that have been nominated are very different."

Since his move back to Ballarat, Boon has opened a recording studio called Sunny South Studio and was also teaching.

Boon said there is a strong grassroots music scene in town which is growing and working together and often spaces to be creative like a studio can help.

"I think there are a lot of people in Ballarat working in silos, but we are trying to bring them all together," he said.

As the weather gets warmer and there are more music events in town, Boon recommended trying out some of the up and coming talent.

"Just take a punt, maybe don't just see a movie and go see a live gig, because there is a lot of really good home brand stuff."

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