Winners of 2021 Ivors Composer Awards address climate change and isolation in their pioneering new works

The winners of this year’s Ivors Composer Awards have been announced, with Thomas Adès, Anna Thorvaldsdottir and Alex Paxton among the line-up. For the first time in Ivors history, the awards included works premiered on recording or livestream to allow for the works that were given their debut during the Covid-19 lockdowns.​

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Thomas Adès picked up an Ivor for his vocal composition Gyöker (Root), commissioned by conductor Oliver Zeffman as part of his ‘Eight Songs from Isolation’ project. The text from Adès’s new work comes from the final poems of Miklòs Radnóti during his imprisonment in a forced labour camp at the end of the Second World War. The jury praised the work as ‘gut-wrenchingly beautiful, deeply poetic and strikingly original.’​

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Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s CATAMORPHOSIS won the Large Scale Composition Award. The orchestral work was premiered by the Berlin Philharmonic and its chief conductor Kirill Petrenko earlier this year, exploring the ‘fragile relationship between humankind and the planet’.​

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Caroline Kraabel has won this year’s Sound Award Award for a new work written for a 40-minute film, London 26 and 28 March 2020: Imitation: Inversion. Scored for double bass with baritone, alto and sopranino saxophone, the piece is set to a film which features shots of London’s deserted city centre during the first Covid-19 lockdown. Kraabel took the footage herself while cycling around the city.​

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Alex Paxton was this year’s youngest winner, taking home the Small Chamber Award for his work for keyboard and drums, Sometimes Voices. Written for Hyper Duo, a Swiss experimental duo, the new piece was created and premiered during lockdown via livestream.​

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Paxton’s new work was praised by the dury as being ‘a highly innovative work of exceptional creative imagination and musical energy.’​

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Martin Iddon won the Ivor for Solo Composition for Lampades, his new work for tuba and fixed media.​

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The work was commissioned and performed by tuba player Jack Adler-Mckean, with an ‘original soundworld creating an immersive, mysterious sense of space.’​

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The Ivors Academy also celebrated the career of Alexander Goehr in its Award for Outstanding Works Collection, while vocalist and composer Cleveland Watkiss received the Innovation Award.​

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The nominations for this year’s Ivors Composer Awards shared a few common themes, with many of the nominated works focusing on lockdown, mythology and nature.​

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The Ivor Novello Awards have been running since 1956, celebrating excellence in composing across classical, jazz and sound art. Six of this year’s winners received an award for the first time.​

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The winners of this year’s Ivors Composer Awards were announced at a ceremony at the British Museum hosted by BBC Radio 3 presenters Tom Service and Sara Mohr-Pietsch.​

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The ceremony will be broadcast in a special edition of the New Music Show on BBC Radio 3 on 11 December at 10pm.​

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The full list of winners​

JAZZ COMPOSITION​

THE CAGED BIRD by NIKKI ILES​

for jazz band​

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LARGE SCALE COMPOSITION​

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CATAMORPHOSIS by ANNA THORVALDSDOTTIR​

for orchestra​

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SMALL CHAMBER COMPOSITION​

SOMETIMES VOICES by ALEX PAXTON​

for keyboard and drums​

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SOLO COMPOSITION​

LAMPADES by MARTIN IDDON​

for tuba and fixed media​

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SOUND ART​

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LONDON 26 AND 28 MARCH 2020: IMITATION: INVERSION by CAROLINE KRAABEL​

for baritone, alto and sopranino saxophones and double bass​

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VOCAL OR CHORAL COMPOSITION​

GYÖKÉR (ROOT) by THOMAS ADÈS​

for mezzo-soprano and four percussionists​

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IMPACT AWARD​

Zoe Rahman​

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INNOVATION AWARD​

Cleveland Watkiss MBE​

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OUTSTANDING WORKS COLLECTION​

Alexander Goehr​

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VISIONARY AWARD​

Sarah Angliss​