Birtwistle was nominated in the choral category for The Ring Dance of the Fragments and in the orchestral category for Night's Black Bird, a work commissioned by the Roche corporation and performed by the Cleveland Orchestra at the Lucerne Festival and Carnegie Hall.

The other orchestral nominations went to Richard Barrett for No, which was commissioned by the BBC Symphony, and Thea Musgrave for Turbulent Landscapes, which was premiered by the Boston Symphony last year.

Other composers receiving multiple nominations included Judith Weir and Cecilia McDowall.