The winners of the 2017 International Classical Music Awards were announced on Thursday. The prizes are awarded by a panel of classical music media outlets from around the world and will be awarded at a ceremony in Leipzig in April.
The artist of the year award went to German violist Tabea Zimmermann. Meanwhile, Finnish bass Matti Salminen received the lifetime achievement award. Salminen has sung at the world’s best known opera houses and distinguished himself for his performances in Wagner’s Ring cycle with the Metropolitan Opera.
Appropriately enough, the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig won a special achievement award. The awards ceremony will take place in the Gewandhaus on 1 April.
In the various categories, Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic won in the symphonic section for their recording of Mendelssohn’s A Summer Night’s Dream and Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique.
The video documentary Leonard Bernstein – Larger than Life was chosen for recognition, while the regular collaborators Julia Fischer and Daniel Müller-Schott secured the chamber music award for Halvorsen, Kodaly and Ravel.
Another special award was reserved for Klaus Heymann, who founded the classical label Naxos.
A full list of the winners can be found here. The awards ceremony will be made available to radio stations across Europe.
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