Gareth Moorcraft’s ‘Diaries of the Early Worm’ was awarded the ‘Solo or Duo’ category award at the recent Ivors Academy Composer Awards. The five-minute work was written for Tabea Debus’s ‘Ode to an Earworm’ concert series in 2019. This is Gareth’s second award, having won the British Composer Award Student Competition in 2012.
Taking the theme of an earworm, Moorcraft explained in his programme notes that “snippets of troubadour melodies emerge from a series of short, repetitive, often obsessive musical ideas which mirror our tendency to repeat catchy melodies in our head.” The judges stated that the piece was “witty, full of character and imaginative in its referencing of familiar and historical materials.” A recording of the work is available on Delphian.
(from Ivors Academy website)
Read more about this year's awards: https://ivorsacademy.com/news/the-ivors-composer-awards-2020-winners-announced/