Musicians' Company awards Lord Mayor's Composition Prize
Florence Lockheart
Tuesday, February 11, 2025
London-based composer Will Harmer has won the award for his work ‘Fire Dance’ for solo piano
The Musicians' Company has announced that its Lord Mayor's Composition Prize has been awarded to composer Will Harmer. Harmer receives a cash prize of £5,000, funded by The Musicians Company Charitable Trust.
Harmer received his award from the Lord Mayor of London, Alderman Alastair King DL, during the composition prize concert held on Sunday (9 February) at St Stephen's Walbrook in the City of London where Harmer’s winning composition Fire Dance was performed by pianist Mihai Ritivoiu.
The Lord Mayor’s Composition Prize was launched in 2011 to provide a biennial prize for classical composition and aims to encourage contemporary composers under the age of 35. For each competition the genre for submissions changes, with previous themes being works for string quintet, organ, piano trio, wind quintet, solo voice, piano and obligato melody instrument, as well as a setting for choir of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis. Participants in the 2025 competition were required to write a work for solo piano.
Submissions for the 2025 competition were judged by a panel featuring City Music Society chairman Leslie East, composer Richard Blackford, pianist Mihai Ritivoiu and Professor Vanessa Latarche chair of International Keyboard Studies with Royal College of Music.
London-based composer Harmer adds this latest accolade to recent triumphs including winning the BBC Proms Inspire Competition and being subsequently commissioned by the BBC Singers to compose Voyage of the Soul, a piece commemorating the Apollo 11 Moon Landings. This year he is a National Youth Choirs Young Composer, and participated in the 2021 Cheltenham Composers Festival Academy. He was recently commissioned to compose new songs for Oxford Lieder and Ludlow English Song festivals.
