Shortlist for 2025 RPS Awards revealed

The Royal Philharmonic Society (RPS) has today announced the shortlists for this year’s RPS Awards. Set to take place in at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire on 6 March in Birmingham, the 2025 awards mark the awards’ first trip to the city.

This year’s RPS Awards will be hosted by BBC Radio 3 presenters Jess Gillam and Tom McKinney with trophies presented by RPS chair Angela Dixon and performances from a range of nominees. The evening aims to celebrate ‘the treasured role that classical music plays in our lives’ and this year’s awards also recognise the diversity which makes the classical music sphere in the UK so exceptional, with 50 per cent of individual performers shortlisted representing the global majority.

RPS chief executive James Murphy said: ‘We often see classical music make news due to setbacks and funding cuts. Yet a resoundingly different story is being forged by musicians nationwide who – whatever they face – resiliently, creatively keep giving everything they have for the benefit of others. Communities recognise this, and they treasure it. This is the message we need more people to hear.’

The shortlisted nominees are as follows:

• Chamber-Scale Composition – for ‘an outstandingly imaginative and engaging chamber-scale work receiving its premiere UK performance to a live or digital audience’
  • Cassandra Miller – Chanter
  • Sally Beamish – Trance
  • Sarah Lianne Lewis – letting the light in
• Conductor – for ‘the outstanding quality and scope of the performances to a live or digital audience, and the work in any context, of a conductor’
  • Dinis Sousa
  • Kazuki Yamada
  • Nil Venditti
• Ensemble – for ‘the outstanding quality and scope of the performances to a live or digital audience, and the work in any context of a group of musicians, no fewer than three’
  • CBSO Chorus
  • Paraorchestra
  • Scottish Chamber Orchestra
• Impact – for ‘an outstanding initiative, individual or organisation that practically engaged and set out to have a lasting impact on the lives of people who may not otherwise experience classical music, demonstrating the positive, empowering role it can play in society’
  • Re:Discover Festival – Streetwise Opera
  • Singing Medicine – Ex Cathedra
  • World Heart Beat Music Academy
• Inspiration – for ‘a non-professional self-run ensemble or an individual who works with such groups, in recognition of the remarkable constellation of such music-makers’. Public voting for this award is open until 11am on 3 February.
  • Katrina Marzella-Wheeler
  • Open Arts Community Choir
  • The Pink Singers
  • Wolverhampton Symphony Orchestra
• Instrumentalist – for ‘the outstanding quality and scope of the performances to a live or digital audience, and the work in any context, of an individual performer on any instrument’
  • Ben Goldscheider – horn
  • Isata Kanneh-Mason – piano
  • Laura van der Heijden – cello
• Large Scale Composition – for ‘an outstandingly imaginative and engaging large-scale work receiving its premiere UK performance to a live or digital audience’
  • Ben Nobuto – Hallelujah Sim.
  • Hans Abrahamsen – Concerto for Horn and Orchestra
  • Katherine Balch – whisper concerto
• Opera and Music Theatre – for ‘an outstanding production or initiative, presented to a live or digital audience, or for the overall accomplishments of a company or individual in opera and music theatre’
  • Curlew River – Aldeburgh Festival
  • Death in Venice – Welsh National Opera
  • New Year – Birmingham Opera Company
• Series and Events – for ‘a distinctive festival, themed series of performances, or truly unique performance event, presented in the UK’
  • Aldeburgh Festival
  • The Cumnock Tryst
  • The Future is Green – Royal Northern College of Music
• Singer – for ‘the outstanding quality and scope of the performances to a live or digital audience, and the work in any context, of an individual singer’
  • Claire Booth – soprano
  • David Butt Philip – tenor
  • Francesca Chiejina – soprano
• Storytelling – for ‘an imaginative entity which, in a lateral medium, newly or distinctly furthered the understanding of classical music’
  • Backstage with the London Philharmonic Orchestra – Sky Arts
  • Cello: A Journey Through Silence to Sound –
  • Kate Kennedy
  • Classical Africa – BBC Radio 3
• Young Artist – for ‘the outstanding quality and scope of the performances to a live or digital audience, and the work in any context of an individual artist or chamber ensemble, relatively new to the profession’
  • Charlotte Corderoy – conductor
  • GBSR Duo
  • Leia Zhu – violin