RPS Music Award announced

The Royal Philharmonic Society Music Awards were presented in a ceremony at the Dorchester Hotel in London last night. Antonio Pappano, Iván Fischer and Alina Ibragimova were among the winners.

The government-funded initiative Sing Up, a singing programme involving 90% of primary schools in the UK, received the RPS Music Award for Education. The jury urged the government to “support this work that is the envy of other countries in Europe and across the world, beyond 2012”. Pupils from a Sing Up Platinum Award-winning school, St Mary’s RC Primary School in Kensal Town, performed during the awards ceremony.

Several of the other awards also had a youthful note: from English National Opera’s under 30s membership scheme, Access All Arias, which won RPS Music Award for Audience Development, to 25-year-old violinist Alina Ibragimova, who scooped the RPS Music Award for Young Artists.

At the other end of the scale, the inspirational 82-year-old American pianist Leon Fleisher won the Instrumentalist category, having recently regained the use of his right hand following a four-decade struggle with a neurological condition.

Among the other winners, Antonio Pappano collected the Award for Creative Communication, Hungarian conductor Iván Fischer won the Award for Conductor and the Royal Opera House received the Opera and Music Theatre Award.

Antonio Pappano is also up for a Classic BRIT Award. The Classic BRIT Awards will be presented in a glitzy ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall on Thursday 12 May. Find out more here.