Brahim Kerkour Wins George Butterworth Prize

Sound and Music are delighted to announce that Brahim Kerkour has been awarded the George Butterworth prize for 2013.

Brahim was Composer-in-Residence with Manchester Camerata in 2012, during which time he developed his work ‘In Circulation’ for which he has been awarded the £1500 prize.  Brahim undertook this residency through Sound and Music’s Embedded residency programme, supported by the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation.

Brahim Kerkour is an Anglo-Moroccan composer, based in London. His music has received performances at venues and festivals including Bridgewater Hall (Manchester), MaerzMusik Festival (Berlin), MATA Festival at Le Poisson Rouge (New York), Royaumont (France), and has been broadcast on France Musique, Deutschlandradio Kultur, and France 3.  Brahim studied composition with Fabien Lévy, Tristan Murail, and Noel Zahler, and holds a doctorate from Columbia University, having initially trained at Connecticut College. www.brahimkerkour.com

About the George Butterworth Prize

“So much fantastic new work is being created by the composers on our programmes, and I’m very happy that with the annual George Butterworth Prize we are able to celebrate that. Since I started my role at Sound and Music, many composers have talked eloquently to me about the importance of the professional recognition that came from this prize in its previous incarnation under spnm, so I am really delighted that we have been able to relaunch it, along with the very popular Francis Chagrin awards.”

Susanna Eastburn, Sound and Music’s Chief Executive

The Prize (£1,500) is awarded annually to the composer of an outstanding new work created through one of Sound and Music’s emerging composer programmes which include Embedded, Portfolio and Adopt A Composer (in partnership with Making Music). The prize recipient will be selected by a panel of composers and new music performers and then presented at a public performance. The George Butterworth panel for 2012 consists of Stephen Montague, Howard Skempton, Peter Wiegold, Trevor Wishart, Chaired by Richard Whitelaw from Sound and Music.

George Butterworth

George Butterworth (1885 –1916) was an English composer best known for the orchestral idyll The Banks of Green Willow and his song settings of A. E. Housman’s poems from A Shropshire Lad.

The George Butterworth Memorial Fund was established in 1921 by the composer’s family together with initial trustees including Ralph Vaughan Williams and George Dyson. It was funded by income from the estate of the composer himself who was tragically killed on the Somme during the First World War, having been awarded the Military Cross.