The Ivors Composer Awards 2020
BBC Radio 3 Welcome
It has not been an easy year for composers and performers as the pandemic has hit their livelihoods in ways we all know: lack of performance opportunities to present music and connect with audiences; budgets tightened due to uncertain future – with all the commissioning issues this entails; the double-sided result of closing concert halls and venues, and questions around whether traditional audiences will return and if we can all continue to reach and to develop broader audiences in this new era.
BBC Radio 3
Welcome
Welcome to this special edition of The Ivors Composer Awards, which we are delighted to bring to audiences as a broadcast ceremony on BBC Radio 3.
In all this, The Ivors Composer Awards, in all its glory as a key part of Radio 3’s schedule, is a welcome island of certainty amidst a lot of uncertainty – and we are thrilled to be able to bring this wonderful celebration of new music to wider audiences at home. One of our main enthusiasms here at Radio 3 is to put a spotlight on contemporary composers, supporting their work and enabling that connection between new music and curious listeners. This is true now more than ever: since the pandemic started we commissioned and broadcast new compositions nearly every week, thanks to our 50 Postcards from Composers. We have also teamed up with partners such as the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival to make sure experimental, contemporary repertoire can go on despite venue closures – just providing a different home for it: the airwaves of our station and curious and hungry audiences worldwide. So welcome to The Ivors Composer Awards on BBC Radio 3: a heavenly match, where we celebrate some of the most cutting-edge, innovative, trailblazing creations by contemporary composers, and provide our audiences with a chance to cherish and to be inspired by great new music, and to celebrate those who compose it. 07
Alan Davey Controller BBC Radio 3, BBC Proms, BBC Orchestras & Choirs
