Ivors Composer Award nominations revealed
Thursday, November 5, 2020
53 works have been nominated across 11 categories.
The Ivors Academy has announced the nominations for the Ivors Composer Awards 2020, celebrating the best new works by composers writing for classical, jazz and sound art.
Writing for the theme of 'protest', composers have tackled issues such as climate change (Rachel Portman’s Earth Song set to words by Greta Thunberg), the fight for universal suffrage (Emily Howard’s The Anvil), the homophobic rhetoric of the DUP in Northern Ireland (Conor Mitchell’s Abomination, a DUP opera), the Windrush Generation (Renell Shaw’s The Vision They Had), Brexit (Alex Hitchcock’s Calvados), bird conservation (Kathy Hinde’s Twittering Machines) and nuclear proliferation (Caroline Devine’s On Common Ground).
Other nominated composers include Sally Beamish, Harrison Birtwistle, Anne Dudley, Jonny Greenwood, Rachel Portman, Gabriel Prokofiev, Judith Weir and Ryan Wigglesworth. All of the nominated works received a UK premiere between 1 April 2019 and 31 March 2020 and were composed by a UK born or ordinarily resident composer.
Gary Carpenter, Chair of The Ivors Academy’s Awards Committee, said: 'The works nominated for this year's Composer Awards perfectly illustrate how contemporary classical, jazz and sound arts respond to the world around us and shape our understanding of the contradictions, uncertainties and hopes that create the fabric of our lives. On behalf of music creators and The Ivors Academy I would like to congratulate all nominees on their achievement. As our world feels increasingly uncertain, we must treasure what makes life so wonderful – music, inspiration and escape.'
The winners will be revealed on 1 December as part of a two-hour ceremony broadcast on BBC Radio 3.
