Acclaimed composer Emily Howard joins The Ivors Academy Board

20 June 2025 - Press release

Emily Howard, current Chair of The Ivors Academy’s Classical Council, has been appointed to the Academy’s Board as a Director.

Born in Liverpool and now based in Manchester, Emily is one of the UK’s leading contemporary composers, celebrated for her innovative fusion of music, mathematics and multimedia. A graduate of Lincoln College, Oxford, the Royal Northern College of Music and the University of Manchester (PhD), she holds a Personal Chair in Composition at RNCM and serves as the founding director of PRiSM, the Centre for Practice and Research in Science and Music

Emily holds Honorary Fellowships at Lincoln College, Oxford and the Royal Academy of Arts. She received a 2017 British Composer Award in the Orchestral category for Torus and in 2023 was nominated for an Ivor Novello Award for Elliptics in the Best Orchestral Composition category.

On joining the Board, Emily Howard said, “I’m really honoured to be joining the Board of The Ivors Academy, and I’m particularly passionate about strengthening music education, protecting creators’ rights in the age of AI, and ensuring we foster an environment where composers and songwriters feel supported to take artistic risks. Music is vital – not optional – and we must invest in its future.”

Roberto Neri, CEO of The Ivors Academy said, “Emily is a visionary composer whose work across music, science and education is both pioneering and inspiring. With Emily on the Board, we continue to represent classical composition at the highest level of our organisation, which strengthens our commitment to championing music education and supporting composers and songwriters in all genres.”