The Royal Philharmonic Society (RPS) Music Awards are given annually for live classical music-making in the United Kingdom. The winners of 2013 RPS Music Awards were revealed at a glittering presentation and dinner at London Dorchester Hotel on Tuesday 14 May.

Birmingham Opera Company‘s production of Stockhausen’s six-hour opera Mittwoch aus Licht, staged in a former chemical plant, took the RPS Music Award for Opera and Music Theatre. In the Learning and Participation category Proper Job Theatre Company and the Scunthorpe Co-operative Junior Choir took the prize for their outdoor community opera, Cycle Song inspired by the local cycling legend Albert ‘Lal’ White. Individual awards went to the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra’s Kyrill Karabits (RPS Music Award for conductor), the mezzo Sarah Connolly (RPS Music Award for Singer) and pianist Steven Osborne (RPS Music Award for Instrumentalist). The Britten Sinfonia in the Ensemble category (for the third time following wins in 2007 and 2009) and for Classic FM in the Creative Communication category  awarded  for ‘broadening the reach of classical music’. The young Heath Quartet – given the nod by Gramophone for a London recital last year – took the award for Young Artists (the first ensemble to win since 1997) and Sheffield’s Music in the Round was given the RPS Music Award for Chamber Music and Song. The composer Gerald Barry took the RPS Music Award for Large-Scale Composition for his opera The Importance of Being Earnest, and Rebecca Saunders was given the Chamber-Scale Composition Award for her work Fletch. The Philharmonia took the RPS Award for Audiences and Engagement for their project ‘Universe of Sound’ which allowed audiences at the Science Museum to travel into the heart of Gustav Holst’s The Planets. 

Royal Philharmonic Society Awards 2013: full list of winners

Audiences and Engagement – Universe of Sound (Philharmonia Orchestra
Chamber Music and Song – Music in the Round
Chamber-Scale Composition – Rebecca Saunders: Fletch
Concert Series and Festival – New Music 20×12 (PRS for Music Foundation)
Conductor – Kirill Karabits
Creative Communication – Classic FM
Ensemble – Britten Sinfonia
Instrumentalist – Steven Osborne
Large-Scale Composition – Gerald Barry: The Importance of Being Earnest
Learning and Participation – Cycle Song (Proper Job Theatre Company and Scunthorpe Co-operative Junior Choir)
Opera and Music Theatre – Mittwoch aus Licht (Birmingham Opera Company)
Singer – Sarah Connolly
Young Artists – Heath Quartet

RPS Honorary Memberships in association with the British Council

Ricardo Castro
Armand Diangienda Wabasolele
Aaron P. Dworkin
Rosemary Nalden
Dr Ahmad Sarmast