Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Gun-Brit Barkmin have both won prizes in the 2017 Gramophone Awards.
Pierre-Laurent Aimard’s recording with Symphonieorchester Des Bayerischen Rundfunks and Sir George Benjamin: Benjamin, Ligeti, Murail: Orchestral Works (Neos) wins in the Contemporary category.
Pierre-Laurent Aimard was awarded the 2017 International Ernst von Siemens Music Prize in July. The laudation was given by Sir George Benjamin: “in the last few decades, no one in the world has exerted a greater influence of the nature of the piano repertoire and the dissemination of modern music for keyboard instruments than Aimard.”
Aimard will also take up his role as Artist in Residence at Southbank Centre for the 2017/18 season on 24 September. During the first year of his residency, Aimard will perform in solo and chamber concerts and collaborate with the Aurora, Philharmonia and Australian Chamber orchestras, demonstrating his incredible skill and interpretation of music from all ages.
Berg’s Wozzeck (Accentus) has won the Opera recording category. This recording features soprano Gun-Brit Barkmin as Marie. Writing of her performance, Hugo Shirley wrote in Opera Magazine that he’d “imagine few can offer a more committed or vivid Marie than Gun-Brit Barkmin, who threw not only her voice – powerful and full of colour – but also her whole being into her semi-feral characterization.”
Gun-Brit Barkmin recently made an acclaimed debut at Opéra de Paris as Marie and gives her debut at Staatsoper Hamburg in the role under Kent Nagano in November. Elsewhere this season, she makes a welcome return to Wiener Staatsoper for Salome under Yannick Nézet-Séguin, as well as with Charles Dutoit and Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, and joins the Hong Kong Philharmonic and Jaap van Zweden for her first Brünnhilde (Götterdämmerung), to be recorded for Naxos.
This year the Gramophone Awards is marking its 40th anniversary. The awards ceremony will take place on 13 September.
