The Gramophone Classical Music Awards, launched in 1977, are one of the most significant honours bestowed on recordings in the classical record industry. They are often viewed as equivalent to or surpassing the American Grammy award, and referred to as the Oscars for classical music. They are widely regarded as the most influential and prestigious classical music awards in the world. According to Matthew Owen, national sales manager for Harmonia Mundi USA, "ultimately it is the classical award, especially worldwide."
Steven Isserlis is a British cellist. An acclaimed soloist, chamber musician, educator, writer and broadcaster, he is widely regarded as one of the leading musicians of his generation. He is also noted for his diverse repertoire and distinctive sound which is deployed with his use of gut strings.
Dame Mitsuko Uchida, DBE is a Japanese-British classical pianist and conductor. She was born in Japan and naturalised in Britain, particularly noted for her interpretations of Mozart and Schubert.
Murray David Perahia is an American pianist and conductor. He is widely considered one of the greatest living pianists. He was the first North American pianist to win the Leeds International Piano Competition, in 1972. Known as a leading interpreter of Bach, Handel, Scarlatti, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schumann, among other composers, Perahia has won numerous awards, including three Grammy Awards from a total of 18 nominations, and 9 Gramophone Awards in addition to its first and only "Piano Award".
Alexis Sigismund Weissenberg was a Bulgarian-born French pianist.
Geoffrey Peter Bede Hawkshaw Tozer was an Australian classical pianist and composer. A child prodigy, he composed an opera at the age of eight and became the youngest recipient of a Churchill Fellowship award at 13. His career included tours of Europe, America, Australia and China, where he performed the Yellow River Concerto to an estimated audience of 80 million people. Tozer had more than 100 concertos in his repertoire, including those of Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Medtner, Rachmaninoff, Bartók, Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Gerhard.
Joyce Hilda Hatto was an English concert pianist and piano teacher. In 1956 she married William Barrington-Coupe, a record producer who was convicted of Purchase Tax evasion in 1966. Hatto became famous very late in life when unauthorised copies of commercial recordings made by other pianists were released under her name, earning her high praise from critics. The fraud did not come to light until 2007, more than six months after her death.
Peter Donohoe CBE is an English classical pianist.
Dame Fanny Waterman was a British pianist and academic piano teacher, who is particularly known as the founder, chair and artistic director of the Leeds International Piano Competition. She was also president of the Harrogate International Music Festival.
Marat Bisengaliev is a Kazakh violinist and conductor of both the West Kazakhstan Philharmonic Orchestra and TuranAlem Kazakhstan Philharmonic Orchestra. He is the founding Music Director of the Symphony Orchestra of India. In addition, he is head of the Uralsk International Violin Competition. Most of the time he lives and works in the UK and India.
Ronald Turini is a Canadian pianist, and the first Canadian artist to win a prize at the Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition, the Queen Elisabeth Competition, and the Geneva International Music Competition.
Benjamin Grosvenor is a British classical pianist.
The Leeds International Piano Competition, informally known as The Leeds and formerly the Leeds International Pianoforte Competition, takes place every three years in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was founded in 1961 by Marion, Countess of Harewood, Dame Fanny Waterman, and Roslyn Lyons, with the first competition being held in 1963. Waterman was the chair and artistic director up to the 2015 competition when Paul Lewis and Adam Gatehouse became Co-Artistic Directors. The first round of the competition takes place internationally and in 2021 went 'virtual' when 63 pianists were recorded in 17 international locations and the Jury deliberated online, in order to circumvent the various impacts of Covid. The 2nd round, semi-finals and finals take place in the Great Hall of the University of Leeds and in Leeds Town Hall and in 2018 & 2021 were streamed to a large global audience through medici.tv, achieving over 4.7 million views and listens through multiple channels and platforms, including the BBC, Amadeus.tv (China), Classic FM and Mezzo.tv.
Paul Lewis is an English classical pianist.
Joseph Murray Banowetz was an American pianist, pedagogue, author, and editor, who taught at the University of North Texas. Banowetz was an expert on the music of the Russian romantic composer Anton Rubinstein.
Dejan Lazić is a Croatian pianist and composer, and a naturalised Austrian citizen. He has appeared with such orchestras as the Budapest Festival Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony, Bamberger Symphoniker, Swedish Radio, Danish National, Helsinki Philharmonic, Australian Chamber Orchestra and NHK Symphony Orchestra, working with such conductors as Iván Fischer, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Giovanni Antonini, Kirill Petrenko, Robert Spano and John Storgårds.
Orion Weiss is an American classical pianist.
Danny Driver is a British classical pianist.
Anatol Ugorski was a Russian-born German classical pianist and academic teacher. He studied at the Leningrad Conservatory, and played works by controversial Western composers such as Schoenberg, Alban Berg, Olivier Messiaen and Pierre Boulez rather than the usual repertoire for Russian pianists. An incident at a concert of Boulez in 1968 made Soviet authorities doubt his political reliability, and they largely interrupted his career for more than ten years. In 1982, he became professor at the Conservatory. When his daughter suffered antisemitic harassment in 1990, the family fled to East Berlin, where they lived in a refugee camp for several months. Irene Dische managed to arrange for him to record Beethoven's Diabelli Variations for Deutsche Grammophon in 1991, which launched a career of performing and recording. He became professor of the Hochschule für Musik Detmold, remaining in the post until 2007.
Anthony Goldstone was an English pianist, known for his eclectic repertoire. He also played a prominent part in promoting works for piano duo with his wife Caroline Clemmow.
