Manchester Camerata Wins RPS Music Award For Ensemble

Read more on BBC News – The orchestra that won a top classical music award – for raving

We have been awarded the Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award for Ensemble at the annual RPS Music Awards. Presented in association with BBC Radio 3, the awards are the highest recognition for live classical music in the UK.

Taking place at The Brewery in London last night, 9 May, the awards honour musicians, composers, writers, broadcasters and inspirational arts organisations. The list of previous winners reads like a Who’s Who of classical music and this year’s RPS Music Awards celebrate outstanding achievement in 2016.

Our CEO, Bob Riley, said: “This award is for the commitment and dedication of our orchestra and artists. They inspire us and all of our partners to work harder, innovate and celebrate what great music making can do. Onwards and upwards.”

We have been recognised for our innovation, and ability to pop up in all sorts of places, from concert halls to care homes, and collaborations with a spectrum of artists, from classical superstar Martha Argerich to the Haçienda DJs. As an award-winning orchestra we are at the forefront of international music-led dementia research, and its pioneering community programme helps to promote social change in its communities. We are also leading best practice across the globe – recently visiting Japan to share our unique approach in music therapy with care homes in Osaka.

We were shortlisted alongside the Ulster Orchestra and Southbank Sinfonia for the Award for Ensemble, one of thirteen categories decided by independent panels consisting of some of the music industry’s most distinguished practitioners.

The RPS Music Awards jury said of Manchester Camerata: “Over the past few years the winner has boldly re-invented itself and blazed a brilliant trail for what a 21st-century orchestra can do. Through its exuberant Hacienda Classical events it has brought an entirely new audience to its concerts – and, more importantly, wooed them back again and again. It has also done pioneering work in the crucial fields of education, health and wellbeing and community engagement. In the crowded orchestral market of north-west England, and through imaginative partnerships further afield, Manchester Camerata made itself an indispensable cultural asset.”

A special programme dedicated to the RPS Music Awards will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 at 19.30hrs on Sunday 14 May and will feature an interview with our Music Director Gábor Takács-Nagy.