The Royal Philharmonic Society (RPS) has revealed the names of the artists and events shortlisted for its annual awards.
To be held on 10 May this year at The Brewery in London, the RPS Music Awards are among the most prestigious in the business. Presented for excellence in live performance, they cover a wide range of categories, from the likes of the Conductor (supported by BBC Music Magazine) and Large-Scale Composition awards to the Audience and Engagement and Learning and Participation awards.
Each RPS award category has a shortlist of three or four. Among the categories that really catch the eye this year is the Instrumentalist award, in which two pianists of different generations and very different styles – Daniil Trifonov and Maria Joao Pires – are listed alongside violinist Christian Tetzlaff. The Conductor award, meanwhile, is spiced up by the presence of Mark Wigglesworth, who has only recently resigned as music director of English National Opera.
Details of all the winners will be published in the June issue of BBC Music Magazine, along with an interview with the winner of the Conductor category. In the meantime, here are the shortlists in full:
Audiences and Engagement
Multi-Story
Steve Reich Clapping Music App – London Sinfonietta/Touchpress/Queen Mary University of London
The Ice Break - Birmingham Opera Company
Chamber Music and Song
Carducci String Quartet ‘Shostakovich 15’
Cavatina Chamber Music Trust
Mr McFall's Chamber
Nash Ensemble
Chamber-Scale Composition
Edmund Finnis: Shades Lengthen
Julian Anderson: Van Gogh Blue
Kaija Saariaho: Light and Matter
Concert Series and Festivals
Kings Place: Minimalism Unwrapped
Philharmonia Orchestra: City of Light – Paris 1900-1950
The Cumnock Tryst
Conductor
Mark Wigglesworth
Sakari Oramo
Vasily Petrenko
Creative Communication
Out of Time: Music and the Making of Modernity by Julian Johnson (OUP)
The Other Classical Musics: Fifteen Great Traditions edited by Michael Church (Boydell Press)
Words Without Music by Philip Glass (Faber & Faber)
Ensemble
Chineke! Orchestra
Fidelio Trio
National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
Instrumentalist
Christian Tetzlaff (violin)
Daniil Trifonov (piano)
Maria Joao Pires (piano)
Large-Scale Composition
Christian Mason: Open to Infinity: A Grain of Sand
Gavin Higgins: Dark Arteries
Luca Francesconi: Duende, The Dark Notes Violin Concerto
Rebecca Saunders: Alba for solo trumpet & orchestra
Learning and Participation
BBC: Ten Pieces
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment: Watercycle
Tri-Borough Music Hub: Seven Seeds
Streetwise Opera: Little Opera Season
Opera and Music Theatre
Birmingham Opera Company: The Ice Break (Tippett)
Glyndebourne: Saul (Handel)
Opera Holland Park: Il Trittico (Puccini)
Singer
Andrew Watts
Iestyn Davies
Roderick Williams
Young Artists
Clare Hammond (piano)
James Baillieu (piano)
Kathryn Rudge (mezzo-soprano)
