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Published: Tuesday, 23 January 2024 at 08:21 AM

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The nominations for the 19th BBC Music Magazine Awards have now been announced, featuring the best classical music recordings from the last year.

Across nine categories, 27 recordings have been selected by our expert jury of BBC Music Magazine critics. Of the nine winners, one will go onto be announced as our Recording of the Year. At our awards ceremony in April, we will also name the BBC Music Magazine Personality of the Year.

In the Orchestral category, we see an immersive survey of three Shostakovich symphonies competing against an assortment of English works and a debut recording of Thomas Adès’s 2021 account of Dante’s Inferno.

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In the Concerto category, there are further premiere recordings, with the Hallé’s impressive gathering of large-scale works by Dobrinka Tabakova, which is shortlisted alongside the Danish National Symphony’s portrayals of Nielsen concertos and violinist Isabelle Faust’s period-instrument take of Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto.

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As well as being shortlisted for the Orchestral Award, John Wilson and his Sinfonia of London also feature in the Opera category for their rendition of Rogers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!. They are up against an ‘electrifying’ recording of Puccini’s Turandot from Antonio Pappano and an all-star cast, and Les Talens Lyriques’ ‘dazzling’ performance of Lully’s rarely recorded opera Psyché.

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As ever, there is a wide range of works featured in the nominations for the Choral Award this year, with a collection of atmospheric choral works by Saariaho from the composer’s native Helsinki Chamber Choir; a well-considered new recording of Monteverdi’s oft-performed 1610 Vespers; and James O’Donnell’s ‘unmissable’ final recording as music director of Westminster Abbey.

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Recordings of the complete songs of the Boulanger sisters and lesser-known Baroque composers sung by the trailblazing countertenor Jakub Józef Orliński are joined in the Vocal category by the solo recording debut of singer Julia Bullock – a varied programme combining a traditional spiritual with songs by 20^th-century singer-songwriters.

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In the Chamber category, there are offerings from Phantasm and the Calidore Quartet tackling Bach’s Well-Tempered Consort III and Beethoven’s Late String Quartets respectively. Joining them are Christian and Tanja Tetzlaff with Lars Vogt in a recording of Schubert piano trios.

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Competing for the Instrumental Award are pianists Krystian Zimerman and Marc-André Hamelin, and guitarist Sean Shibe. Zimerman offers ‘staggering virtuosity’ in his set of Szymanowski piano works, while Hamelin showcases the power and beauty of Fauré’s piano writing with superb technique. This is the second time Sean Shibe has been nominated in this category, following his 2018 entry for his debut solo album. This time, he takes a trip to South America to showcase some of the continent’s most arresting music.

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Nominated for the Premiere Award are a ‘beautiful, varied and enlightening’ programme of overlooked solo viola repertoire by female composers by Rosalind Ventris; a collection of premiere recordings spanning decades from Martin Jones, Rebeca Omordia and the BBC Concert Orchestra; and a thrilling showcase of orchestral works by Missy Mazzoli, performed by the Arctic and Bergen Philharmonic Orchestras.

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Our final category is the Newcomer Award, celebrating a new artist who has made a splash in the classical music world over the past year with their debut recording. Soprano Alexandra Lowe and pianist Patrick Milne showcase their respective talents in Le Voyage, a programme of French songs inspired by Greece, the Middle East and Spain. They are joined in this category by guitarist Raphaël Feuillâtre, who reframed works by JS Bach and his French contemporaries in an ‘exquisite, joyfully presented programme’. Pianist George Xiaoyuan Fu joins the line-up with his debut album Mirrors, which pairs a dynamic range of works by composers including Ravel, Rachmaninov, Freya Waley-Cohen and Unsuk Chin.

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Our expert panel of judges was chaired by BBC Music Magazine reviews editor Michael Beek. He was joined by the magazine’s editor Charlotte Smith, along with regular critics Terry Blain, Jessica Duchen and Andrew McGregor.

Voting closes at midnight on Friday 23 February, with the winners revealed at our Awards ceremony at King’s Place on Thursday 18 April. To cast your votes, head to classical-music.com/awards.

Listen to the nominated recordings for the 2024 BBC Music Magazine Awards