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Kate Molleson and Tom Service present this year's Ivors Classical Awards.

The Ivors Classical Awards - which took place on Tuesday at BFI Southbank - is one of the highlight's of the UK's contemporary music scene. It's also a great chance to catch up on what's in the air across the spectrum of the music scene with a wide range of categories from chamber, orchestral, choral and stage music to community projects and sound art.

On the shortlist of 36 composers there are works which reflect a variety of important and topical themes. Julian Anderson’s ECHOES – commissioned for Classical Pride – and Philip Venables’ music theatre piece The Faggots and their Friends Between Revolutions both focus on sexuality and queer communities, whilst Joanna Marsh’s Batter My Heart, Oliver Leith’s Hallelujah amen and Cassandra Miller’s The City, Full of People focus on religion and spirituality.

Some of the nominated works use music as a form of activism and to raise awareness of important topics, including Hannah Conway’s FLY/WORK/GROW which highlights the devastating impact of temporary accommodation and homelessness has on child health and development.
Nature and climate change is also a regular theme within contemporary classical music and sound art. Nominated works with this theme include Christian Mason’s environmental cantata The Singing Tree, Gavin Higgins’ Horn Concerto – which celebrates his relationship with forests and love of woodlands – and Tiding II (silentium) by Lisa Illean which focusses on the ocean. Other works inspired by the ocean and water are Benjamin Tassie’s A Ladder is Not the Only Kind of Time, Dan Jones’s Each Tiny Drop and Duncan MacLeod’s Orasaigh.

To listen on most smart speakers, just say: "Ask Â鶹ԼÅÄ Sounds to play New Music Show."