<\/p>
The nominations for the 20th BBC Music Magazine Awards have now been announced, featuring the best classical music recordings from the last year.<\/p>
Across nine categories, 27 recordings have been selected by our expert jury of BBC Music Magazine <\/em>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.<\/p> The contenders for the Orchestral category include an album of music by Faur\u00e9<\/a><\/strong> and Schoenberg<\/a><\/strong> bursting, said our reviewer, with ‘sheer conviction and intensity\u2019. It goes up against a thrilling Czech performance of Smetana<\/a><\/strong>‘s patriotic symphonic poem M\u00e1 vlast<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, and a disc of music from the brilliantly talented American composer Augusta Read Thomas<\/a><\/strong> that ‘has the feeling of a musical treasure trove’.<\/p> Over in the Concerto category, our three contenders include a star-studded Beethoven<\/a><\/strong> Triple Concerto featuring cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason<\/a><\/strong>, violinist Nicola Benedetti<\/a><\/strong> and Benjamin Grosvenor<\/a><\/strong>. Up against that disc are a stellar Elgar Violin Concerto<\/a><\/strong> from Vilde Frang and insightful, energetic readings of the Grieg<\/a><\/strong> and Schumann<\/a><\/strong> Piano Concertos by the 79-year-old Elisabeth Leonskaja.<\/p> The 2025 Opera category pits two contemporary works against a glittering rediscovery from two centuries ago. Louise Bertin’s Fausto<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, pretty much forgotten after its 1831 premiere, gets a scintillating rebirth from conductor Christophe Rousset and others. It goes up against The Hours<\/em>, Kevin Puts’s ‘absorbing, harrowing’ new opera based on an Oscar-winning film, and Girls of the Golden West<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, John Adams<\/a><\/strong>‘s tale of the inequality of California\u2019s \u2018golden\u2019 dawn, when dreams were made of precious metal.<\/p> Our three 2025 Choral contenders are a thrilling Mozart Requiem<\/a><\/strong> from Pygmalion and their conductor Rapha\u00ebl Pichon; Nicky Spence<\/a><\/strong> and others in Elgar<\/a><\/strong>‘s great oratorio<\/a><\/strong> The Dream of Gerontius<\/a><\/em><\/strong>; and Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Phil in Gabriela Ortiz’s dazzling Revoluci\u00f3n Diamantina<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, inspired by Mexico’s 2019 \u2018Glitter Revolution\u2019 when thousands protested against police brutality against women. \u2018A thing of wonder indeed,\u2019 said our review.<\/p> ‘Grunts, shrieks, hums\u2026 this is no ordinary performance.’ So says the review of H\u00e9lo\u00efse Werner<\/a><\/strong>‘s Close-ups<\/em>, one of this year’s Vocal Award contenders. It’s joined by ROBESON<\/em>, a fascinating album of songs performed by American bass-baritone Dav\u00f3ne Tines, and by a revelatory double album of songs by the French composer Rita Strohl<\/a><\/strong>, which sees soprano<\/a><\/strong> Elsa Dreisig and pianist Romain Louveau in sparkling form.<\/p> This year’s Chamber category features a delicious album of oboe and piano music by both Schumanns, Clara<\/a><\/strong> and Robert; Patricia Kopatchinskaja<\/a><\/strong> and friends in music by Bart\u00f3k<\/a><\/strong>, Poulenc<\/a><\/strong> and others; and Keel Road<\/em>, in which the Danish String Quartet survey the sounds and songs of five northern nations. ‘Is it folk? Is it world music? Is it classical? Does it matter? Poetic and oh-so memorable.<\/p> The piano takes centre stage in this year’s Instrumental category, where the rising South Korean star Yunchan Lim<\/a><\/strong> makes the final three with his daring, captivating debut album of Chopin \u00c9tudes. He goes up against Marc-Andr\u00e9 Hamelin, whose album of his own recent works for piano<\/a><\/strong> was described as \u2018endlessly fascinating’; and, for a change of tone, a distillation of 400 years\u2019 worth of French viol repertoire, performed with huge panache by Lucile Boulanger.<\/p> There were some memorable premiere recordings this year. The three discs to make the cut for our Premiere Award were Re-Build<\/a><\/em><\/strong>, a dazzling selection of new works for trombone<\/a><\/strong> quartet performed by the boundary-pushing Slide Action; a new violin concerto<\/a><\/strong> from British composer Adrian Sutton, deftly performed by Fenella Humphreys; and The Anvil<\/em>, Emily Howard\u2019s thrillingly immersive and deeply emotional commemoration of the 1819 Peterloo Massacre.<\/p> Last but not least is our Newcomer Award, where we meet again two nominees from previous categories: star pianist Yunchan Lim for his revelatory Chopin<\/a><\/strong>, and Slide Action for their invigorating album of trombone quartet music. Joining them are the UK-based Echo Vocal Ensemble, whose debut album Innocence, featuring work by everyone from Hildegard of Bingen<\/a><\/strong> to Howard Skempton, resulted in a ‘deeply satisfying, thought-provoking’ listen.<\/p> Voting for this year’s Awards will be open from Thursday 23 January<\/strong>, and will close at midnight on Friday 28 February, with the winners revealed at our Awards ceremony at King\u2019s Place on Wednesday 23 April.<\/p> Many thanks to this year’s jury: Berta\u00a0Joncus<\/a><\/strong>, Andrew McGregor, Claire Jackson<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0Michael Beek<\/strong><\/a> and\u00a0Charlotte Smith<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0<\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n By Published: Thursday, 23 January 2025 at 01:05 AM The nominations for the 20th 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":52117,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"4"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/bbc-music-magazine-announces-2025-nominations.jpg",2126,1346,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/bbc-music-magazine-announces-2025-nominations-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/bbc-music-magazine-announces-2025-nominations-300x190.jpg",300,190,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/bbc-music-magazine-announces-2025-nominations-768x486.jpg",768,486,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/bbc-music-magazine-announces-2025-nominations-1024x648.jpg",800,506,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/bbc-music-magazine-announces-2025-nominations-1536x972.jpg",1536,972,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/bbc-music-magazine-announces-2025-nominations-2048x1297.jpg",2048,1297,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Published: Thursday, 23 January 2025 at 01:05 AM The nominations for the 20th 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…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/52116"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The 2025 contenders: star-studded Beethoven and more<\/h2>
Thrilling Mozart and a ‘Glitter Revolution’<\/h2>
Captivating Chopin, emotional commemorations<\/h2>
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