Rising Star Award with Apple Music Introducing

Introducing the Rising Star Award with Apple Music Nominees

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.

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.

“I want my voice to become the soundtrack to people’s lives,” she smiles. “I want my music to represent my era but I want my songs to inspire others to break it down and reconstruct it, to innovate what music sounds like in our future.”

The future is also on the mind of fellow nominee Carmel Smickersgill. Smickersgill hails from a very different corner of the musical universe, composing both classical and electronic pieces that have already seen her receive the 2019 Christopher Brooks Composition Prize from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic.

For her, The Ivors recognition means “encouragement, validation and being given the fuel to start new projects and write for myself”.

“It has given me the confidence to pursue projects that I would have been too unsure of whether anyone would listen to them,” she enthuses. “The nomination gives you the freedom to trust your artistic gut.”

And Smickersgill’s instincts already have a strong track record.

“My compositional style ranges from dark electronic to zestful pieces for concert hall,” she says. “Despite the diversity of artists and ensembles I’ve collaborated with or written for, I always want my music to feel honest.”

It’s that commitment that marks Smickersgill out as a star for the future, and you can expect her already-impressive range of projects to only expand in the future.

“I feel incredibly privileged to be able to do what I do and one of the best parts is that one day you can be writing for a classical artist then, the next week, collaborating as part of a theatre company and leaving that to go on tour with a band,” she says. “The only thing I hope to achieve is that I can keep swimming through this mixture of cultures and worlds, and avoid having to get a ‘job’ job.”

Rising Star Award with Apple Music

Introducing Similarly, unlikely to impact on future employment figures is Sarah-Faith Griffiths, aka GRIFF. With deals for publishing with Universal Music and records with Warner Records already in place, she is one of the hottest tips for stardom in the musical galaxy. But The Ivors acknowledgement brings real validation.

“It means I must be doing something right!” she laughs. “Literally this time last year, I’d just finished my A levels, and I remember feeling super run down from going from session to lesson, to session to lesson for months. I didn’t even know if it would ever lead to a career in music, it just felt like something I had to pursue. So to be a year in to releasing music full time, and to be recognised for this award is beyond encouraging!”

Griff already has more bangers than a Bonfire Night barbeque, with her Mirror Talk EP and Say It Again and Forgive Myself singles heralding the arrival of a major new pop voice.

She says she tries to write “uplifting songs, even if the lyrics are sad” and to “pair satisfying melodies to honest, conversational lyrics about whatever I’m feeling at the time”.

That formula is certainly working, with Radio 1 and a host of media tastemakers already on board. But, tellingly, Griff is focused on her craft.

“I hope I just keep writing better songs,” she says. “Songs that say and sound like something new. If I can do that, then hopefully more people connect to the music and the success will follow.”

Success is also on the horizon for our next nominee, lullahush, aka Irish producer Daniel McIntyre. Working at the unique triangulation point between poetry, pop and production, lullahush has already been behind beautifully idiosyncratic compositions such as Elysium and If Spring Had A Spare Room I’d Rent It With You.

And while lullahush is clearly an artist following the trail less travelled, The Ivors have convinced him it’s the correct one.

“There’s this feeling of, ‘It’s OK now, you are doing the right thing’, and then the honour of it being the Ivor Novellos kicks in!” he grins. “Mica Levi and Nick Cave are nominated for one, and so am I, it’s crazy...”

Once you hear lullahush, however, the nomination seems anything but. McIntyre is fully committed, recently producing his first audio/ visual interactive installation to help get his message across.

“It’s that thing of, ‘write the truth’,” he says. “It’s more about feeling than style. Even if it’s other-worldly or abstract, just get to the place where it’s like, ‘This feels genuine’. Once you’re telling the truth, everything falls into place and you know where to go.”

And lullahush, in common with all of this year’s nominees, is clearly going places.

“Success for me would mean continually evolving,” he says. “Getting to experiment and always push myself not to repeat, to say something, move on, and then say something else. Happiness is creative fulfillment, and that’s pretty much what I’m going for.”

Rising Star Award with Apple Music

Introducing It’s a message that also chimes with the final Rising Star nominee, Mysie. A working musician since she was just 16, Lizbet Sempa’s dream collaborations would include Rosalía, Thundercat and Tame Impala and she lists her musical ambitions as hoping to “continue to grow, play and explore”.

Mysie has already done plenty of all three, as the celestial vocals and visionary sounds on her Heartbeat and Gift singles and her Chapter 11 EP show. She describes her Rising Star nomination as “an absolute honour”.

“It is so amazing to be acknowledged for my work at this early stage of my career and it is such a great achievement for my songwriting,” she says. “To be nominated is an incredible opportunity. It means the world to me.”

Mysie has music in her blood; the granddaughter of a Ugandan jazz musician, African culture and London life both resonate through her unique songwriting.

“I have always gone with what I feel when it comes to songwriting, and the music always takes the lead,” she says. “I love to play around with structure, melody and different chord progressions. I love really going with the flow of the music. It’s really about what feels natural to me but also what carries purpose.”

And there, Mysie surely speaks for all the Ivor Novello Award nominees. Like all Rising Stars, they’re here to make life brighter, and will be lighting up our universe for years to come.

MARK SUTHERLAND