The Jury of the International Classical Music Awards – ICMA today announced the winners for 2017. « The ICMA Jury comprises 16 leading media from 14 countries, having the most up to date knowledge of the classical music market. Our Jury is totally independent and international, and therefore provides reliable guidance to the global audience. This year, the jury selected 17 audio and video productions from a total of 321 nominations. The jury was most excited about the list of finalists obtained after two rounds. They reflected the variety and the extremely high level of this short list out of which the winners were selected. No other awards for classical musical present such a carefully filtered list of winners,” said Remy Franck, President of the Jury.
ICMA 2017 also present nine Special Awards paying respect to exceptional musicians and producers. The renowned Finnish bass Matti Salminen wins the Lifetime Achievement Award, German viola player Tabea Zimmermann is Artist of the Year. Considering two categories, Vocal and Instrumental, the Jury chose German-Italian pianist Sophie Pacini and French soprano Elsa Dreisig as Young Artists of the Year. The Discovery Award, organized in collaboration with the International Music Academy in Liechtenstein, goes to 15-year-old German pianist Robert Neumann. The Swedish label BIS is Label of the Year.
Special Achievement Awards are given to the producer and founder of the record label Naxos, Klaus Heymann as well as to the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig and to the young Ensemble Esperanza from Liechtenstein.
The Awards of the 15 CD and DVD categories follow in a list at the end of this press release. With equally placed productions in two categories the number of awards is 17.
The winners will receive the ICMA trophies during the annual Award Ceremony taking place this year in Leipzig, Germany, 1 April 2017. The evening will also include a Gala Concert at the Gewandhaus, with the participation of ICMA winners and the Gewandhausorchester conducted by Francesco Angelico. Through the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the concert will be available to radio stations all over the world.
The International Classical Music Awards are the only truly independent and international awards for classical music in the world. The jury consists of professional music critics of the most important magazines, online services and radio stations: Andante (Turkey), Classic Radio (Finland), Crescendo (Belgium), Das Orchester (Germany), Gramofon (Hungary), HRT Croation RadioTelevision, IMZ (Austria), MDR-Figaro (Germany), Musica (Italy), Musik & Theater (Switzerland), Orpheus Radio (Russia), Opera (UK), Pizzicato (Luxembourg), Radio 100,7 (Luxembourg), Resmusica.com (France), Rondo Classic (Finland), and Scherzo (Spain).
The complete list of the 2017 ICMA Awards is in the dedicated section of our website.
