News

Sam Denniston, manager of Jungle, and newcomer Hozier were respectively named winners of the Breakthrough Manager and Breakthrough Artist awards at the Artist and Manager Awards last night.

In front of a host of stars and a select music business crowd longtime manager of Queen, Jim Beach received the Peter Grant Award and the audience joined Roger Taylor and Brian May in toasting him.

Placebo were this year’s recipient of the Artists’ Artist Award. The band, formed by Brian Molko and Stefan Olsdal  are about to celebrate their twentieth anniversary.  FAC co-chair Sandie Shaw presented the award.

The Industry Champion Award was awarded to Asgard’s Paul Fenn and Imogen Heap was given the Pioneer Award by producer and writer Guy Sigsworth .

Henry Village picked up the new Entrepreneur Award reflecting his myriad successful business interests and Jackie Davidson collected the Writer/Producer Manager award for her work with multi hit writers Wayne Hector and Ali Tennant.

Ed Sheeran and manager Stuart Camp sent a humorous video acceptance of Artist and Manager Achievement Award from Australia where they are on tour.

Full list of winners:

• Breakthrough Artist  (sponsored by  Dice) – Hozier
• Writer/Producer Manager (sponsored by BMI) – Jackie Davidson
• Breakthrough Manager (sponsored by Key Productions) – Sam Denniston
•  Artist and Manager Achievement Award (sponsored by Mix Radio) – Ed Sheeran and Stuart Camp.
•  Entrepreneur (sponsored by Vevo) – Henry Village
•  Pioneer (sponsored by 7digital) – Imogen Heap
•  Industry Champion (sponsored by Youth Music) – Paul Fenn
•  Peter Grant Award (sponsored by PPL) – Jim Beach

Radio 1’s Scott Mills ably hosted the show and there were performances by newcomer Nik Lloyd and a stripped down version of  “Say Something” by recent chart entrant Karen Harding. The show was closed with a rousing medley of Queen hits sung by the Kingdom Choir, conducted by its leader, Karen Gibson accompanied by a band from The AllStars Collective.

The AMAs will return in 2016.