Music at York alumnus wins Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition 2025
Christian Mason (BA Music 2003-2006, MA Composition 2006-2007) has won one of the world’s most prestigious international composition awards with his work invisible threads (2023).
Given annually since 1985, the Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition has been received by such luminaries as Kajia Saariaho, György Ligeti, Unsuk Chin and Harrison Birtwistle, placing Christian among an enviable roster which includes only four previous British winners.
invisible threads is a ‘performance installation’ for mobile voices, bass clarinet, accordion and string quartet, and sets especially-written texts by Paul Griffiths. Listeners are free to move through the performance space, even as the performers themselves change position during the 70-minute work. The Grawemeyer committee highlighted how Mason’s music “challenges its listeners even as it speaks to a broad audience in a musically passionate and artistic way.”
Since his studies at the University of York, Mason has quickly established himself as one of the leading composers of his generation. He was a 2015 recipient of an Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung Composer Prize and serves as a mentor to both the LSO Panufnik Young Composers Project and the Hong Kong Composers’ Scheme. His works have been performed and/or commissioned by ensembles such as the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the BBC Proms and the Arditti Quartet. He is a founding Artistic Director of the Octandre Ensemble and plays the Theremin.