Posted on 11 April 2011
Shortlists have been announced for the RPS Music Awards, the UK’s most prestigious accolade for live classical music. Presented in association with BBC Radio 3, this year’s RPS Music Awards shortlists, for outstanding achievement in 2010, are drawn from across the UK and feature outstanding artists aged 18-82.
In a good year for the Royal Opera House, its production of Wagner’s Tannhäuser has scooped a host of nominations, with the ROH also nominated for the RPS Music Award for Audience Development (in a head-to-head with English National Opera) and its Music Director, Antonio Pappano shortlisted for the RPS Music Award for Creative Communication. Southbank Centre also enjoys a strong showing, with shortlisted nominations in the Concert Series and Festivals, and Education categories, and a nod for its associate artists, the Takacs Quartet in the RPS Music Award for Chamber Music and Song. A half-century divides 82-year-old pianist Leon Fleisher from fellow shortlisted Instrumentalist nominees, Lawrence Power (viola) and Elizabeth Kenny (lute). 18 year old pianist Benjamin Grosvenor is the youngest ever RPS Music Awards shortlisted nominee. The Aurora Orchestra, in only its sixth year, is shortlisted for the Ensemble award. Finnish conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen and lyric tenor, Jonas Kaufmann, are amongst the big names to make the cut. Here is the full list of nominations.
The RPS Music Awards are presented in association with BBC Radio 3. The society is grateful for BBC Radio 3’s continuing support – the seventh year that the awards have been presented in association with BBC Radio 3 - and to its individual award sponsors, donors and supporters: BBC
Music Magazine, David W. Bowerman CBE, Peter Bull, The Guardian, the Musicians Benevolent Fund, Rosenblatt Recital Series, the Yellow Car Charitable Trust and an anonymous donor. The Musicians Benevolent Fund is supporting the Instrumentalist Award.
Winners will be announced at the RPS Music Awards ceremony at the Dorchester Hotel on
Tuesday 10 May. A special ‘Performance on 3’ programme devoted to the RPS Music
Awards will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on Sunday 15 May, 2-4pm.