The Ivors Academy launch

28 March 2019 - Press release

Launch address from Crispin Hunt, Chair
(the below are his reference notes)

 

This year we celebrate our 75 anniversary of the formation of the Academy.

Our new identity brings together all the brilliant elements of our activity and our journey here.
In 1944 we started as the Composers’ Guild of Great Britain. The Songwriter’s Guild formed three years later in 1947, the Ivors awards came into being in 1956, the Gold Badge Awards followed in 1974, the Association of Professional Composers formed in 1976 and BASCA came into being, combining all three guilds into one in 1999. The British Composer Awards followed in 2003.
This is a fantastic legacy and has given us an amazingly talented and diverse membership.

- This day, our celebration of the new Ivor’s academy is a testament to and the realisation of the great vision of our founders.
- But we can’t rest on past glories, we must engage the entire creative community across the UK, to become relevant to the fast changing music environment where there is pressure for buyouts, pressure on distribution splits, pressure on publishing agreements and pressure to conform to new models of royalty licensing and collection that in turn put pressure on collective rights management and the incomes on which we all depend.
- To overcome these challenges we need a Future facing vehicle, reflecting the music creation environment of today and tomorrow.The Ivor’s Academy is more than just a change of symbol, its a symbol of change.
- Music Creators are the architects on whose work the entire music industry is built. We should be front and centre drafting and shaping its future.
- At our core, we are a campaigning organisation and our strategy is to gain the resources to fulfil this role fully. To see our ambition, look no further than the Copyright Directive where we have been out in front, fighting in the trenches, leading the charge on behalf of the industry. Working with our industry partners in the UK and across Europe, tweeting like a flock of starlings ( well I have) , recording songs and videos, busking to google and lobbying opinion- formers.
- Busking outside Google was probably the most fun, we made more in 3 songs than I’ve made from several million views on You-Tube: £5.60. I guess its true when they say all the monies in live.
- The power of our collective voice is no longer to be underestimated.
- This is what we are about. This is why we are important and why people should join.
1. We are here to unite, connect, educate, cultivate and celebrate the next generation of music writers and to ensure that Composing is a viable career in the future.
2. Communication and free expression is what creators do. Music communicates the parts of the human condition that science will never articulate , we speak a language understood by none and all. Not even most creators.
3. From now on music should be a 3 way conversation. Between the creators, the industry and distributors.
4. There’s no need for others to speak on creators behalf any longer. Though we are grateful and encourage it when those voices, and our interests are truly aligned.

We can speak for ourselves. Come and have a chat.
-The power of the song is undisputed, but why then is the song so underpaid in the digital world? Its a matter of value creation vs value extraction. The song creates most of music’s value, but it extracts a slither of that.
-Correcting this balance, so the song extracts a fair share of the value we create is our primary focus, towards a holistic and sustainable business for us all.
- We cant continue using old world splits in this new world market. We can build new models.
Airfix or Brittas? Its gonna be fun. We may of course get a bit of glue on our fingers while building it, but it’ll look amazing when its fully painted!
- But its not all about campaigning.
- We also have the best awards in the world recognising the art and craft of songwriting and composition. Alongside the Ivors we have the British Composer Awards which become the Ivors Composer Awards, and our Gold Badge event continues and evolves.
- An area where we want to do a whole lot more is in cultivating and connecting our membership and the future generations of composers and songwriters. Across the regions and beyond.
- You have heard from Silvina and we are looking forward to developing programmes that inspire and educate our membership and those starting out on a creative career across the UK.
- I would like to reiterate my thanks to the Board, Committees, Trust, PRS, our supporters and team.
- Oh! And thank’s to Apple for not suing us in America.
-Our mission is to innovate, empower, inform and celebrate Musical creativity: connecting a global membership towards a flourishing musical future for every genre.
The future needs a powerful, pragmatic, sensible and effective collective voice for music writers. The Ivor’s Academy of Music Creators ( “IAMCreators”) is the future-facing, fit-for-purpose evolution of BASCA’s great legacy. Its the vehicle we need.
To our members and a brighter future for music, and for creativity and for us all.