The winners of the 19th annual BBC Music Magazine Awards, in association with Bang & Olufsen, have been announced at a star-studded ceremony at London’s Kings Place. The only classical music recording awards in which the main categories are voted for by the public, this year’s BBC Music Magazine Awards shine the spotlight on some of the most dazzling, adventurous and beautifully performed recordings of 2023.
We begin with conductor John Wilson and his orchestra, the Sinfonia of London, who have enjoyed a red-letter year at the 2024 Awards. Their recording, with soloists including Nathaniel Hackmann and Sierra Boggess, of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1943 stage musical Oklahoma! took home the Opera Award, while the same forces also scooped the Orchestral Award with their disc of works by Vaughan Williams, Howells, Delius and Elgar. The works on this disc include Vaughan Williams’s much-loved Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, which our reviewer Terry Blain called ‘a stunning benchmark for the digital generation’. Small wonder, then, that this disc also went on to win our Recording of the Year.
Our 2024 Personality of the Year award went to organist, conductor and social media sensation Anna Lapwood, whose incredible 2023 included a successful solo album, an MBE and a Proms debut. Variously dubbed the ‘TikTok organist’ and ‘the Taylor Swift of classical music’, Lapwood has brought classical music to waves of new audiences with her prolific and hugely engaging social media presence, and has collaborated fruitfully with everyone from electronic artist Bonobo to actor Benedict Cumberbatch.
Evangelical about bringing music to new audiences, Lapwood told us, ‘There’s potential to reach young people just where they are spending their time, and to say, “You know what, I love this thing, you might love it too. Come along for the ride and let’s see what happens.”’ Her energy and passion made her an obvious Personality of the Year.
Back among the musical categories, this year’s Concerto Award went to the captivating album of Nielsen concertos performed by the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, conductor Fabio Luisi, and soloists Ulla Miilman (flute), Johnny Teyssier (clarinet) and Bomsori Kim (violin).
Winners of this year’s Chamber Award, meanwhile, were the New York-based Calidore String Quartet, with their superb recordings of Beethoven’s Late Quartets. ‘The Calidore players penetrate right to the heart of the music, giving warm and intensely lyrical accounts,’ noted our review.
Elsewhere, conductor Raphaël Pichon and his ensemble Pygmalion took the Choral Award with their luminous recording of Monteverdi’s Vespers – a fitting accolade, as Pichon tells us that his first encounter with the work, as a nine-year-old chorister, was ‘one of the biggest moments of my musical life – a truly mystical experience. I felt I was entering a new cosmos for the very first time.’
Staying with the human voice, this year’s Vocal Award went to everyone’s favourite breakdancing countertenor Jakub Józef Orliński for his album Beyond, in collaboration with the period performance ensemble Il Pomo d’Oro. Encompassing works by Monteverdi, Caccini, Frescobaldi and others, the disc earned a glowing review from our writer Kate Bolton-Porciatti: ‘Featuring a string of world premieres, the creative and attentively researched programme knits together musical and textual threads into a fast-moving sequence of cantatas, songs, opera extracts and sundry instrumental pieces that blur boundaries been pop and art music.’
Impressively, guitarist Sean Shibe earned a BBC Music Magazine Award nomination with his very first album back in 2018. This year he’s gone one better, winning the Instrumental Award for his dazzling new album Profesión, which features works by a trio of great Latin American composers: Ginastera, Barrios and Villa-Lobos.
And our Newcomer Award went to pianist George Xiaoyuan Fu for Mirrors, his adventurously curated album of solo piano works by Ravel, Rachmaninov, Unsuk Chin and others.
Speaking of adventurous programming, the 2024 Premiere Award went to a bold, captivating album of 20th and 21st-century concertante works by Elisabeth Lutyens, Elizabeth Maconchy and BBC Music Magazine’s May cover star, Errollyn Wallen. These scintillating recordings were made by pianists Martin Jones and Rebeca Omordia, with the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by John Andrews. The latter was full of praise for his orchestral forces: ‘They’d just come from recording some Shirley Bassey, but they absolutely ate this music for breakfast. They cede nothing to the finest contemporary music groups in the world.’
The winners of the 2024 Awards were announced at a live ceremony at London’s Kings Place, hosted by BBC Music Magazine editor Charlotte Smith and Radio 3 presenter Tom Service, and featured live performances from Newcomer Award winner George Xiaoyuan Fu and Chamber Award winners the Calidore String Quartet, plus guest presenters including Clive Myrie, Katie Derham, Tim McInnerny, Tasmin Little and Nicky Spence.
Catch up with the action on BBC Music Magazine’s website at www.classical- music.com/awards, on Twitter (#BBCMMAwards), Facebook and Instagram, and in the June 2024 issue of BBC Music Magazine (on sale from 14 May).
Audio clips from all the winning albums can be found on the BBC Music Magazine website, along with links to online retailers. The winners represent the absolute best of more than 900 albums reviewed each year in BBC Music Magazine, the world’s best-selling classical music magazine.
Notes to editors:
About BBC Music Magazine
BBC Music Magazine is the world’s best-selling classical music monthly. Each issue is packed full of news, features, interviews and reviews, and comes with a CD of complete works performed by BBC ensembles and other internationally renowned musicians. Follow us on Twitter @MusicMagazine, Facebook @classicalmagazine, and Instagram @bbcmusicmag
BBC Music Magazine Award Winners 2024
ORCHESTRAL AND RECORDING OF THE YEAR
Delius • Elgar • Howells • RVW
Orchestral Works
Sinfonia of London/John Wilson Chandos CHSA 5291
PERSONALITY OF THE YEAR Anna Lapwood, organist
CONCERTO
Nielsen
Flute Concerto*, Clarinet Concerto**, Violin Concerto^
*Ulla Miilmann (flute), **Johnny Teyssier (clarinet), ^Bomsori Kim (violin); Danish National Symphony Orchestra/Fabio Luisi
Deutsche Grammophon 486 3487
OPERA
Rodgers & Hammerstein
Oklahoma!
Nathaniel Hackmann, Sierra Boggess et al; Sinfonia of London/John Wilson Chandos CHSA 5322(2)
CHORAL & SONG
Monteverdi
Vespro della beata Vergine Pygmalion/Raphaë l Pichon Harmonia Mundi HMM 902710.11
VOCAL
Beyond
Works by Monteverdi, Caccini, Frescobaldi, Kapsberger, Saracini, Netti, and Jarzębski Jakub Jó zef Orliń ski (countertenor); Il Pomo d’Oro
Erato 5419772645
CHAMBER
Beethoven
Late String Quartets Calidore Quartet
Signum Classics SIGCD733
INSTRUMENTAL
Profesión
Works by Barrios, Ginastera, Villa-Lobos Sean Shibe (guitar)
Pentatone PTC 5187 054
PREMIERE
Lutyens • Maconchy • Errollyn Wallen
Maconchy: Dialogue for Piano and Orchestra; Lutyens: Eos; Music for Piano and Orchestra; Errollyn Wallen: Piano Concerto*
Martin Jones, *Rebeca Omordia (piano); BBC Concert Orchestra/John Andrews Resonus RES10315
NEWCOMER
Mirrors
Works by Ravel, Rachmaninov, Freya Waley-Cohen, Timo Andres, Unsuk Chin et al George Xiaoyuan Fu (piano)
Platoon Music PLAT15459