Gregson nominated for British Composer Award 2017 

Britain’s foremost contemporary composers have been revealed today, with thirty composers nominated for the British Composer Awards, spanning 33 works across 11 categories. 

From a community project exploring the refugee crisis and featuring Donald Trump quotes, to a work examining societal perceptions of women through the metaphor of birds, to a composition calling on humankind to re-programme its attitude towards the natural world by giving nature a musical voice, the 2017 nominations underline the many ways in which contemporary composers are using music to engage in current affairs. 

The 2017 nominations highlight the UK’s thriving contemporary music scene, with a record number of entries received this year. The number of young composers nominated increased too, with 46 per cent of nominees under the age of 40, and the number of women nominated has continued to increase year on year, with women making up 42 per cent of the shortlist. Half the composers are also first-time nominees. 

Crispin Hunt, Chairman at BASCA, said: “Britain is home to a flourishing and bold community of enlightened and reformist contemporary composers, whose work continues to accelerate music’s role in society. The works nominated here speak to politics, ecology, art and history and somehow manage to distil the disorder about us into form. It’s inspiring to note a significant uplift in submissions this year, especially to see so many first-time nominees and young composers shortlisted – further testimony to the pioneering musical spirit of today.” 

The following composers have been nominated for works in the Wind or Brass Band category: 
·         Edward Gregson (Brass Band) is a Sunderland born composer of orchestral, chamber, choral and instrumental music which has been performed, broadcast, and recorded world-wide by the likes of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the Hallé and BBC Philharmonic. He has also written music for the theatre, film, and television. He holds honorary degrees and fellowships from over a dozen British universities and was previously nominated in 2013. He is nominated this year for a work influenced by the terrible human tragedy in Aleppo. 
·         Kenneth Hesketh (Wind Band) has been described as ‘one of the UK’s most vibrant voices’ and is a professor at the Royal College of Music where he teaches a fellow 2017 BCA nominee, Barnaby Martin. Twice nominated previously, Kenneth has composed for the stage for the Royal Opera House and is an honorary professor at Liverpool University. His nominated work, ‘In Ictu Oculi’, is an extended meditation on the transience of time, and the disintegration of cultures, individuals and civilisations. 
·         Joseph Davies (Wind Band) was born in Cardiff in 1987 and then studied composition at Oxford, where he graduated in 2009 with a Gibbs Prize for outstanding academic achievement in his year. His nominated piece, Anomoi, refers to wind deities of ancient Greece and is written for a wind Orchestra. He is a first-time nominated composer. 

The winners in each category will be announced at an awards ceremony presented by BBC Radio 3 presenters Andrew McGregor and Sara Mohr-Pietsch at the British Museum in London on Wednesday 6 December 2017.  

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