The 17th Independent Music Awards, the ceremony for which was held on Saturday in New York, saw four Portuguese nominated for prizes in different categories, among the more than 100 in the competition.

Barros, a composer and pianist, was nominated for two awards: best independent song used in advertising campaigns and best song used in a film/TV/game.

The jazz album ‘Trapézio’, by Portuguese singer Susana China was nominated in two categories: Jazz with Vocals, for China herself, and Album Art/Photography, for its designer, Mariana Seiça.

The winner of the former award was Camille Thurman, with ‘Waiting for the Sunrise’ and the winner of the latter was Cody Blocker, for Katie Cash’s ‘Gift Horse’.

Sandra Correia was among nominees in the album category World Traditional Music, for ‘Aqui Existo’. The winner in that category was Sara Ajnnak for ‘Gulldalit: Can You Hear Me’.

The Independent Music Awards this year saw more than 400 independent artists nominated for their work, in categories for albums, songs, videos, production, photography and design.

Barros, a native of Marinha Grande, in west-central Portugal, made his debut in 2013 with the album ‘Circustances’. In 2015 he released ‘Soundtracks Vol. I’, in 2016 ‘In between’ and in 2017 ‘Reasons’.

His works have been used in the advertising and film industries.

As a composer, he in 2015 won a prize for ‘Best score’ at the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival Awards, for his work on the US short film ‘Our Father’ by Linda Palmer.

In 2017, André Barros was nominated in the Contemporary-classical/instrumental category for the Hollywood Music in Media Awards.