Orchestral Award 2023
The nominees for this year's BBC Music Magazine Orchestral Award
Voting has now closed
Welcome to the 2023 BBC Music Magazine Awards
This year’s nominated recordings for the Orchestral Award are listed below. Voting has now closed and the winners will be revealed at our Awards ceremony at Kings Place on Wednesday 19 April.
The nominees for the orchestral award
Sibelius
Symphonies; Tapiola; 3 Late Fragments
Oslo Symphony Orchestra/Klaus Mäkelä
Decca 485 2256
This four-disc survey of Sibelius’s symphonies, and other orchestral works, was quite the calling card for young Finnish conductor Klaus Mäkelä. Taking on this symphony cycle is something of a rite of passage for Finland’s conductors. The results? ‘Electrifying’ and ‘revelatory’, according to our original review.
Coleridge-Taylor
Othello Suite; African Suite; Ballade etc
Chineke! Orchestra et al
Decca 485 3322
There was ‘passion and flair’ on display in this collection of orchestral works by Coleridge-Taylor, performed by the brilliant Chineke! Orchestra under conductors Kevin John Edusei, Fawzi Haimor, Roderick Cox, Kalena Bovell and Anthony Parnther. Our review called it ‘one of the biggest and best collections of his music yet released’.
Bacewicz
Works for Chamber Orchestra, Vol. 3
Amadeus Chamber Orchestra of Polish Radio/Agnieszka Duczmal
DUX DUX 1828
In a set of recordings spanning a number of years, conductor Agnieszka Duczmal and the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra revived a series of string works by one of Poland’s greatest, and often unsung, musical voices. The gutsy performances were described as ‘dynamic and full of life’ in our June issue review.
