He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Huddersfield in 2003. Honours include first prize in the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in 1978, the Kranichsteiner music prize at Darmstadt in 1982, and four Royal Philharmonic Society composition awards, the first of which he received for the work “Traumwerk”. After a short foreword by the composer, this very work will be performed at the festival by Duo Gelland. Dillon does not deny the complexity of his works, but always reminds that it is a means of „looking for and endless intensity” rather than complexity for its own sake – to him, music is, beyond doubt, an emotional art form. The Guardian writes that „James Dillon has written some of the UK’s most important music”.