Ivors Academy launches new awards honoring video game composers

Video game composers just got a clearer path into the UK’s top tier of composition recognition. The Ivors Academy has launched The Ivors Composer Awards, a new annual ceremony that will include original music for video games alongside film, television, documentaries and performance works, with the first event set for November 17, 2026 at Grosvenor House on Park Lane in London. Entries open June 1, and the ceremony will sit inside The Ivors Composer Week, which runs November 16-20.

The point is not to treat games as a novelty category. The academy says the awards are designed to honor compositional craft in its own right, with entries judged by panels of established composers and practitioners. Winners will receive the familiar Ivor Novello Award statuette, a small but important signal that game scores are being placed in the same prestige conversation as screen music.

Roberto Neri, the academy’s chief executive, said the new ceremony marks the culmination of 71 years of championing compositional excellence and broadening recognition across contemporary composition. The Ivors Academy says it has honored outstanding composers since 1956 and describes itself as the leading organization for songwriters and composers. Its eligibility rules are broad, covering music heard for the first time by UK audiences across stage, screen, games, streaming, radio, festivals, community projects and beyond, with nominated composers limited to British, Irish or UK-resident creators.

For game audio teams, that matters in practical terms. A dedicated category gives composers another credential when pitching to publishers, studios and orchestras, and it gives original game scores a cleaner route into the same prestige lane long occupied by film and television. It also helps frame game music as authorship, not decoration, which is exactly the shift the industry has been chasing for years.

That broader momentum is already visible elsewhere in the UK. BAFTA has announced a 2026 Games in Concert event featuring a 65-piece orchestra performing music from 20 years of BAFTA Games Awards history, a strong sign that game scores are moving beyond the screen and into the country’s cultural institutions. The Ivors move makes that status feel less like a trend and more like the new baseline.