Ninajirachi, Anna Lunoe, Dom Dolla and More Receive 2026 MPEG Award Nominations

The Music Producer and Engineers' Guild of Australia (MPEG) has today announced the nominees of the 2026 MPEG Awards, which celebrate excellence across music production, engineering, and studio practice.

Now in its third year, the MPEG Awards remain the only national awards program dedicated exclusively to producers and engineers, recognising the creative and technical leadership shaping Australian music behind the scenes.

Hosted by Ron Haryanto, co-founder of Mentor Academy and a long-time advocate of Australian producers and engineers, the 2026 ceremony will take place on Wednesday, February 25th 2026, at Cockle Bay in Sydney, bringing together industry peers to honour an outstanding year of work across eleven award categories.

Categories including Producer of the Year, Breakthrough Producer of the Year, Self-Producing Artist of the Year, Overseas Achievement, and Mix Engineer of the Year.

Ninajirachi, Aidan Hogg, Simon Cohen, Robby De Sa, and Alice Ivy have received two nominations each, while Anna Lunoe has received three. Also among the nominees are Harvey Sutherland, Thomas Purcell (aka Wave Racer), Xavier Dunn, Sophie Edwards, Nick Herrera, and more.

Dom Dolla, who recently won the inaugural Global Impact award at the ARIAs, has been nominated for Overseas Achievement - which he won in 2025, alongside Tim Tan, Catherine Marks, Styalz Fuego, and Keanu Beats.

Check out the full nominees list below.

Anna Laverty, Chair and Founding Director of MPEG, said: “What really stands out this year is just how strong the work is across the board. These nominations reflect an incredible amount of care, craft and creativity, and being recognised by your peers in this way really means something. Huge congratulations to everyone nominated.”

Meanwhile, the 2026 Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented to Mike Chapman - one of Australia's most influential global music figures. A songwriter and producer, Chapman's work has shaped popular music across more than five decades and multiple continents.

Chapman forged one of the most commercially successful partnerships in pop music history. In 1970, while working as a waiter at the London nightclub Tramp, he met British songwriter Nicky Chinn, beginning a collaboration that would define the sound of 1970s pop and glam rock.

 

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From 1973 to 1974 alone, Chinn and Chapman scored 19 hits in the UK Top 40, including five number-one singles. Their output during this peak period included “Ballroom Blitz” and “Blockbuster!” (The Sweet), “Tiger Feet” (Mud), “Devil Gate Drive” and “Can the Can” (Suzi Quatro), and “Living Next Door to Alice” (Smokie). Throughout the decade, their songs topped charts across Britain, Germany, Scandinavia, Australia, and New Zealand, making them one of the most successful songwriting teams of their era.

In 1975, he relocated to the United States, embarking on a solo production career that would yield some of the most influential albums of the late 1970s and early 1980s, including Blondie’s Parallel Lines (1978) – featuring the global number-one single “Heart of Glass” – and The Knack's Get The Knack (1979), home to “My Sharona”.

Chapman received a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in 2014 for service to music as a songwriter and producer, and the Grant McLennan Lifetime Achievement Award at the Queensland Music Awards. His body of work – spanning more than 50 years from the glam rock era through new wave and into contemporary pop – stands as a masterclass in how songwriting, production and studio innovation can shape the global music landscape across generations.

2026 MPEG Award Nominees:

Producer of the Year Alex Burnett Anna Lunoe Aidan Hogg Alice Ivy Robby De Sa

Breakthrough Producer of the Year Xavier Dunn Fletcher Matthews Ninajirachi Jonathon Tooke Moss McGregor Sophie Edwards

Writer-Producer of the Year Anna Lunoe Robby De Sa Lucy Blomkamp Rob Amaruso Aidan Hogg

Recording Engineer of the Year George Carpenter Lewis Mitchell Simon Cohen Rohan Sforcina Wayne Connolly

Mix Engineer of the Year Simon Cohen Eric J Dubowsky Thomas Purcell (Wave Racer) Nao Anzai Nick Herrera

Mastering Engineer of the Year Nao Anzai Lachlan Carrick Nicholas Di Lorenzo Joe Carra Andrew Edgeson

Studio of the Year Pughouse Studios Empire Studios Synth Temple 4000 Studios Audrey Studios

Self-Producing Artist of the Year Harvey Sutherland Alice Ivy Anna Lunoe Ninajirachi Skeleten

Overseas Achievement Tim Tan Catherine Marks Styalz Fuego Keanu Beats Dom Dolla

Outstanding Community Work Songmakers Kool Skools Music Producers Development Program Music Production for Women Resonate