Michael Simic, one of the most colourful stage personalities ever to emerge from the Canberra region, is the 2025 Canberra CityNews Artist of the Year.

He was named at the annual ACT Arts Awards, held at the ANU Drill Hall Gallery on November 11. He received a certificate and a $1000 prize.

Better known through his flamboyant stage persona Mikelangelo, Simic and his band, The Black Sea Gentlemen, have performed to sold-out audiences on London’s West End and at major festivals across the UK, Europe, NZ, Canada and the US.

It all began in Canberra, where Simic was born in 1969 and of which he remains immensely proud, saying: “I feel like I’m part of the wellspring of Canberra creativity.”

With his larger-than-life stage presence and faux-Balkan accent – a nod to his Croatian heritage – Simic was praised by the Canberra Critics’ Circle as a “consummate professional entertainer” known for his rich baritone voice, relentless energy and effortless rapport with audiences.

Happily embracing such monikers as the “Nightingale of the Adriatic,” “Bull of the Balkans,” and “The Balkan Elvis”, Simic now lives in Braidwood, where he and his wife, Rose, are raising two children. Rose suspects he may also have the makings of a great children’s entertainer.

But if anyone thought Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen were fading from view, think again. This year alone they’ve undertaken major Australian tours and played at least three significant shows in Canberra.

“Coming up to 56, I feel like I’m only getting started,” Simic says. “I’m only halfway through. I’m going to keep going until my nineties.”

Deeply rooted in the Canberra arts scene, Simic began as a schoolboy drama student at Hawker College, where he met his future performing partner Geoff Hinchcliffe.

Immersed in Canberra’s rich creative environment, he regularly attended exhibitions, plays and concerts before going on to complete an honours degree in creative arts at the University of Wollongong from 1988 to 1991.

Returning to Canberra, he and Hinchcliffe – now an associate professor – formed the provocative duo P Harness, which travelled to the Edinburgh Fringe before Simic launched Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen in 2000.

These days, he says he creates work simply because he feels “driven to do it,” while relishing family life with his young children. Inspiration, he adds, is never far away: “Canberra is a place of possibility.”

Earlier in the evening, the Helen Tsongas Award for Excellence in Acting was presented to actor Andrea Close.

The awards, hosted by the Canberra Critics Circle, also featured the circle’s own awards, which went to: poets, Maggie Shapley, SK Kelen and John Foulcher; non-fiction writers Edmund Goldrick and Emily Gallagher; musicians, Andrew Hackwill, Richard Johnson, The National Capital Orchestra, Canberra Qwire and Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen; dance artists, Alison Plevey & Sara Black, Akira Byrne and Ausdance ACT; screen, Ann McGrath and Andrew Pike; theatre, Christopher Samuel Carroll, Christopher Baldock, Jarrad West, James Scott and The Street Theatre; musical theatre artists, Amy Orman, Sarah Louise Owens, Queanbeyan Players, Alexander Unikowski and Amelia Andersson-Nickson; and visual artists Sophie Dumaresq & Asil Habara, Aidan Hartshorn, Maddie Hepner, Jo Hollier and Al Munro.