Nominated for an Ivor Novello Award

It’s incredibly exciting but Nathan Williamson and myself have just been nominated for an Ivor Novello Award for ‘The Quest‘ which we were commissioned to write by London Youth Opera for their last years production at the Shaw Theatre in December.

It was a delight to work on it as you will have read in my previous blogs, but this accolade has come as a wonderful surprise.

Our category is for The Best Community and Participation Composition in association with ABRSM.

Of course the competition is tough with other writers such as Jonathan Dove and April De Angelis for Uprising and Benjamin Oliver and Rachel Warr in the mix for Vent. The truth is it’s just great to be in their company.

This is what Robert Nero, CEO of The Ivors Academy said:

‘Congratulations to all our nominees, who reflect the outstanding creativity shaping contemporary composition. Their works explore powerful themes of technology, nature, history, our relationships and identity.'

‘An Ivor Novello Award is one of the highest honours in music, made unique by recognition from fellow composers’.

The Ivors Classical Awards celebrates music made by British, Irish or UK resident composers. The six categories are judged anonymously, with all identifying information removed from all entered materials seen by the judges. A jury of 30 composer judges from The Ivors Academy considered over 220 works entered for this year’s awards, resulting in 29 nominated works in the shortlist.

BBC Radio 3 presenters Kate Molleson and Tom McKinney will present the 2025 ceremony, while BBC Radio 3 will broadcast the ceremony on 15 November in a special edition of the New Music Show. The episode will also be available on BBC Sounds.

I’m looking forward to it enormously!