National Forum of Music wins international classical music award

Wrocław’s concert hall the National Forum of Music has been announced as recipient for one of this year’s International Classical Music Awards (ACMA) prizes for special achievement in recognition of the venue’s state of the art facilities and broad programme. The award is one of 26 announced this week which will be given at a ceremony and gala concert on 21 April.

Following 391 nominations, award recipients were chosen by a jury of 18 industry experts including critics and editors from magazines, websites and radio stations across Europe. The panel was headed up by jury president Rémy Franck, managing director and editor-in-chief of Pizzicato.

Franck said: ‘The ICMA jury, international and independent, supports musical excellence and scrutinizes the global music industry to ultimately find the best of the best, thus getting the opportunity to show musicians’ talent and interpretive skills worldwide.’

Alongside the NFM's award, the year’s second special achievement award was given to pianist Alessandro Marangoni, with cellist David Geringas receiving the 2023 lifetime achievement award. Soprano Ermonela Jaho was named artist of the year, while the ICMA young artist of the year was violist Saò Soulez-Larivière.

Founded in 2011, the ICMA aims to recognise creativity, imagination in choice of repertoire and artistic excellence.. This year the organisation launched the new ICMA Classeek Award, organised in collaboration with the digital classical cusic platform Classeek. The award’s inaugural winner was double bassist Marc-André Teruel.

Violinist Leonhard Baumgartner received the discovery award, David Philip Hefti was given the composer award and organist Karol Mossakowski, who will perform at the competition awards ceremony, received the orchestra award. The ICMA label of the year was Naxos