Success for Oliver Knussen and Stephen Hough at the RPS Awards

After multiple nominations for HarrisonParrott artists, pianist Stephen Hough and composer-conductor Oliver Knussen emerged triumphant from this year’s RPS Music Awards – the UK’s most prestigious accolades for live classical music.

Knussen beat fellow nominees Kirill Karabits and Andris Nelsons to win the Conductor Award. The jury described Knussen as “a uniquely influential musician in the British music world for many years… blessed with the best pairs of ears in the business” and praised performances “illuminated with authority and interpretive insight”. He joins a distinguished list of past winners in the category which includes Sir Simon Rattle, Sir Charles Mackerras, Valery Gergiev, Mariss Jansons, Pierre Boulez and fellow HarrisonParrott artist, Osmo Vänskä. The conducting honour is Knussen’s second RPS Award – he received the Chamber-scale Composition prize in 1992.

Hough received the RPS Music Award for Instrumentalist. Honoured for “outstanding success” on the concert platform in 2009, the jury highlighted his universally acclaimed BBC Proms performances of all four of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concertos. His success follows Janine Jansen’s in the same category last year and Pierre-Laurent Aimard’s in 2004.

Philharmonia Orchestra, a long-standing HP Tours and Projects client, also picked up two awards at the ceremony, held at London’s Dorchester hotel.

Click here to see a notebook featuring HarrisonParrott RPS winners past and present.  

www.rpsmusicawards.com