Joe Dolce is a composer and poet and an Australian-American dual national. He was a 2021 City of Melbourne Poet Laureate, Highly Commended in the 2020 ACU Poetry Prize, short-listed in 2020 & 2014 Newcastle Poetry Prizes, short-listed in the 2019, 2018, 2017 & 2014 University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor's Poetry Prizes, and awarded First Prize in the 2017 University of Canberra Health Poetry Prize, for his choral libretto, And let the wonder in. His poetry was included in Best Australian Poems 2015 & 2014 and he was winner of the 25th Launceston Poetry Cup (2010).He composed and orchestrated the SATB oratorio, Joan on Fire, which was performed twice by the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra and Chorelation choir at the Melbourne Baptist Church. He was on the staff of the Australian Institute of Music, teaching Composition, Setting Poetry to Music, and Ensemble for two years. He is more popularly known, internationally, for writing and performing the song, Shaddap You Face (1980-81) which was the Number One 45 rpm record (when they made 45 rpm records!) on the pop charts in a dozen countries and held the nine-times platinum award for the most successful song in Australian music history, for four decades. To date, Shaddap You Face has been translated into over 10 languages, including Papua New Guinea pidgin and the Western Australian aboriginal Indjibundji dialect.He is co-writer, with his partner, Lin van Hek, of the song Intimacy, which was part of the soundtrack of the sci-fi masterpiece, The Terminator, selected as part of the United States Library of Congress National Film Registry archives.His songs have been recorded, internationally, by scores of artists.In 1981, he was presented with the Advance Australia Award by Sir Rupert James Hamer, AC, KCMG, ED, Premier of Victoria.
