Sounds Australia may fall silent over funds row By Nick Miller Courtney Barnett has benefited from the organisation.
Australian artists could miss out on lucrative international deals - and even Grammy nominations - due to a funding bungle that threatens to gut the official organisation that promotes and supports Australian musicians overseas, music industry members claim. 
The decision to cease funding for Sounds Australia, compounded by delays resulting from the federal election, has boiled over into a row between federal government departments, with diplomats ruing the potential loss of a cost- effective and well-run project in "cultural diplomacy".
And artists and managers have joined in an appeal to save the body, which they say was crucial in launching the international careers of recent breakout successes like Courtney Barnett, Chet Faker and Vance Joy.
Sounds Australia helps Australian artists find audience, managers and promoters overseas, and promotes them at key international showcases such as South by Southwest in the US.
However this year's cuts to arts funding left them without the lion's share of their budget, after a bid for a grant renewal from the government's Catalyst fund was knocked back.
The current funding, of $1.75 million over four years, runs out at the end of this year. "We can't execute the program at its current level without (this)," APRA spokesman Dean Ormston said. "The overall Sounds Australia service will need to be stripped back."
An email inadvertently sent to Fairfax Media by a senior arts bureaucrat suggested that a department move to throw Sounds Australia a lifeline had been stymied by the election, with time running out before they have to start scaling back plans for 2017.
Last month in Brighton at a networking lunch organised by Sounds Australia in the wings of the Great Escape festival, Australia's deputy high commissioner to the UK implicitly criticised the decision to withdraw funding.
Andrew Todd said DFAT was a "proud partner and supporter" of Sounds Australia which was "an extraordinary organisation".
Australian musicians brought economic benefit to Australia and helped portray the country as contemporary, dynamic and modern, he said. "This is something that grey-haired old diplomats like me simply can't do," he said. "We are indebted to organisations like Sounds Australia. They need to be rest assured that there are certain elements of the Australian government, including the department of foreign affairs and trade, that's absolutely in your corner, not only because it's the right thing to do but because there are economic benefits."
The organisation has estimated its work has led to more than 1200 new performance opportunities and more than 1500 business outcomes for Australian artists, including record deals, booking agents, distributors, publishing deals and brand endorsements.
It had supported 620 Australian acts at 48 international events in 52 cities in 19 countries.
Courtney Barnett's manager Nick O'Byrne said they had been "absolutely instrumental" in fast- tracking his client's success.