The Ivors 2020
Rising Star Award with Apple Music Introducing Like comets, new Ivor Novello Awards don’t come around very often. So it’s fitting that this year’s new addition – the first in 10 years – is the Rising Star Award with Apple Music, dedicated to those who will be blazing a trail through the music universe in the future. The new gong honours young British and Irish songwriters and composers who demonstrate exceptional potential and ambition, and the record-breaking number of entries (60% of them female) shows that there is no shortage of fresh talent out there.
Introducing
Even better, the sheer range of the five nominees demonstrates the diversity of the next generation of Ivor winners, with each nominee being mentored by an established star. Take Amahla for example. This young soul singer is no stranger to being picked out for acclaim – selected for a Carla Marie Williams songwriting weekender in 2017, the following year she was awarded the PRS Foundation’s Lynsey de Paul Prize and the MOBO Help Musicians Fund. But the Ivor stands out. “Storytelling is my passion,” she says. “And to know established songwriters recognise something special within me is incredibly encouraging. It’s already pushing me to dream bigger.” Amahla’s deeply intelligent and strikingly direct songwriting, as displayed on her brilliant Consider This EP and latest single Apathy, has already won considerable acclaim and millions of streams. She says she is “inspired through conversation”, adding: “Songwriting helps clarify my thoughts and connect with people I never thought I could. Songwriting is powerful because I can make big and complicated issues accessible to people who wouldn’t otherwise listen.” And people will surely listen to Amahla in ever larger numbers. But, wherever her subsequent career takes her, it will be that human connection that matters most to this old-school songwriter from the Leonard Cohen/Nina Simone school.
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