ISM Lifetime Achievement Award

The ISM presented a Lifetime Achievement Award to composer and ISM member Jonathan Harvey on Saturday 29 September 2012. ISM Past President Paul Max Edlin and ISM Council member Param Vir made the presentation at Jonathan’s home in Sussex.

On accepting the award, Jonathan said:

‘I am overjoyed to receive the incredible honour of an ISM Lifetime Achievement Award which is one of the greatest honours of my life. Whilst I have received awards for individual pieces, they have had a competitive aspect to them...this award is an acceptance from a whole community of musicians for which I feel very deeply honoured.’

ISM Chief Executive Deborah Annetts added:

‘This award is presented to acknowledge that Jonathan has created a different way of speaking, and provided a fundamentally different way of hearing the world, through music.’

Jonathan Harvey gained doctorates from Cambridge and Glasgow universities, and in 1969 took up a Harkness Fellowship at Princeton University. He has since been given honorary doctorates, professorships and fellowships from many institutions across the world.

In the 1980s Jonathan was invited by Pierre Boulez to work at IRCAM. He has received performances and commissions from countless ensembles, festivals, and companies throughout the international musical community. In addition to the ISM Lifetime Achievement Award he has also received many other awards for his work, including the RPS award for large-scale composition earlier in 2012.