Michael Yezerski

Michael Yezerski is an Australian composer known for his scores for feature films such as The Waiting City, The Black Balloon (for which he won an APRA Award and a Screen Music Award), Newcastle, and Thursday's Fictions, as well as collaborations with the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the Gondwana Voices Children's Choir (such as an adaptation of Shaun Tan's book The Red Tree), the National Museum of Canberra, Synergy Percussion and The Physical TV Company.

In an interview with Headliner Magazine, Yezerski discussed composing the score for 2019 horror film, The Vigil: "Why have there been so many horror films that have explored the various denominations of Christianity and demons and devils and everything associated with Christianity, but there has hardly ever been a film that explores the dark side of Jewish mysticism? I'm Jewish myself, so this is exactly the question that I've been asking. What I love about horror films, and dark, edgy films, in general – there's so much creative license to play with musical effects in non traditional ways. It's really fun as a composer."

The APRA Music Awards are sets of annual awards to celebrate excellence in contemporary music, which honour the skills of member composers, songwriters and publishers who have achieved outstanding success in sales and airplay performance. They are presented by APRA AMCOS (Australasian Performing Right Association and Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society), which commenced in 1982. The APRA Awards include the Screen Music Awards, which were first presented in 2002 by APRA AMCOS and the Australian Guild of Screen Composers (AGSC). The APRA Awards also include the Art Music Music Awards (formerly Classical Music Awards), which are distributed by APRA AMCOS and the Australian Music Centre (AMC) since 2001.