Sydney-based klezmer fusion band CHUTNEY’s debut album Ajar has just won a Gold Medal in three categories in the Global Music Awards: 

• Best world music

• Best band and 

• Most creativity/originality.

The Global Music Awards are the world’s biggest awards for independent music, attracting thousands of applicants globally each year. CHUTNEY’s Gold Medal places Ajar in the top 9 of 145 new releases selected as finalists from across the world. 

Additionally, CHUTNEY is the only artist to win in three categories, and the only Australian Gold Medal winner.

Ajar, as in ‘Ajar of CHUTNEY’, is one of the biggest albums of Jewish music to have been produced in Australia for years, exploring genres from klezmer to Israeli pop, funk to classical, jazz to musical theatre and everything in between. 

Band leader and violinist Ben Adler writes: “Winning this Gold Medal is a watershed moment for CHUTNEY. After five years, we have taken our place on the world stage. 

“We, like many Jewish artists, have found ourselves over the past eighteen months the target of attempts to deplatform and erase us, not to mention the recipients of online vitriol. That we are receiving international recognition for an album of unapologetically Jewish music in this climate fills me with pride. I hope the Australian Jewish community can feel vicarious nachas for our achievement and comes to embrace Ajar as their album - a soundtrack of contemporary Australian Jewry.”

The band released their debut single, Kama At Yafa (How Beautiful You Are) כמה את יפה, two months after 7 October 2023, as a gesture of solidarity from the diaspora to Israel and especially to the hostage families. Featuring singer Sarit Michael, it was broadcast on Israeli national radio and television, and its music video was viewed over 400,000 times across social media platforms.

CHUTNEY’s fifth single, Toxic Moonlight, is a daring klezmer-infused mashup of Britney Spears and Beethoven. It stars lead singer of The Potbelleez Ilan Kidron, and was named by Rolling Stone Magazine A Song You Need to Know.

Ajar has won several other accolades since its release in August 2024, including:

• Brisbane radio station 4ZZZ Balkan Beats’ Top 10 Albums of 2024

• International radio station Global Village Radio’s Top 10 Releases - October 2024

• Sydney radio station Eastside Radio’s Album of the Week

• Sydney radio station Fine Music’s CD of the Week

• Radio play on international platform Rhythm Passport

• Radio play on ABC Radio Sydney

• A glowing 4.5 star review in The Weekend Australian

CHUTNEY has just returned from the National Multicultural Festival in Canberra, where they performed, with the support of the Israeli Embassy, klezmer and Israeli music with singer Noy Ben Ami as the opener for the festival headliner. They also presented a workshop in which dance caller Audrey Klein taught the crowd traditional klezmer and Israeli folk dancing.

In October 2024, the band performed for a capacity crowd at Sydney Town Hall with Sarit, Ilan, Noy and many others for Songs of Hope, the inaugural concert of SHIR, the Australian Jewish Music Festival.

In August and September 2024, CHUTNEY supported double ARIA winning Melbourne Ska Orchestra on their national tour through Queensland, NSW and the ACT.