Diana Damrau, exclusive Virgin Classics artist and Adina in the recent revival of L'elisir d'amore at the Royal Opera House, has been shortlisted for the prestigious Gramophone Artist of the Year award. The awards ceremony will be held on 2 October 2009 at The Dorchester, London.

"Damrau is a natural, a big personality on stage, firing up her vocals to great purpose, scolding, flirting, coaxing and cajoling for all she’s worth. It’s a lovely sound she makes but it’s the personality behind that sound, the uninhibited way she uses the coloratura that proves so winning." (The Independent)

EMI Classics's recording of The Tempest by Thomas Adès is CD of the Month in the August 2009 issue of Gramophone magazine:

"The Royal Opera House finally hit gold with a new opera ... that will surely stand the test of time, that deepens with every hearing. ... The casting assembles some of the finest performers around today. ... Adès's own conducting drives inexorably the groundswell of lyricism that motivates this piece and unifies all the vocal acrobatics. And ... there is everywhere the satisfying feeling of a show that has been well played in."

Free public outdoor relays of Joyce DiDonato and Juan Diego Flórez in Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia live from Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, conducted by Antonio Pappano, will take place on Wednesday 15 July at 19:30.

The Screenings will be held in the following locations:

• London, Trafalgar Square

• London, Canary Wharf

• Waltham Forest, Walthamstow Town Square

• Bradford, Centenary Square

• Cardiff, The Hayes

• Derby, Market Place

• Leeds, Millennium Square

• Liverpool, Clayton Square

• Manchester, Exchange Square

• Middlesbrough, Centre Square

• Plymouth, The Piazza

• Portsmouth, Guildhall Square

• Rotherham, All Saints’ Square

• Swansea, Castle Square

• Swindon, Wharf Green

Pre performance events start from 7pm; the main feature starts 7:30pm

Approximate timings: 3 hours (Act I 100 minutes / Interval 25 minutes / Act II 60 minutes)

Performances are being filmed for DVD release on Virgin Classics in January 2010.

BBC Radio 3 Composer of the week this coming week is Franz Schubert (1797-1828). Click on the link below to view all available Schubert recordings in the EMI & Virgin Classics catalogue.

Leif Ove Andsnes has been performing in factories and disused shipyards recently as part of an audio-visual project entitled Pictures Reframed. The joint project with South-African-born visual artist Robin Rhode centres around Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” and combines music, film and still images.

Read about Pictures Reframed in ClassicFM magazine and look out for the world premiere at Lincoln Center, N.Y. November 13 and 14 and at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall December 4.

Sir Simon Rattle was the subject of a prestigious "Lunch with the FT" feature interview published on Saturday 20 June 2009. In it he speaks extensively about his work with the Berliner Philharmoniker and about his perceived differences between the Germans and the Brits.

Sir Simon's next EMI release, in September 2009, will be the Brahms symphonies with the Berliner Philharmoniker.

The world première recording of The Tempest, conducted by the composer and recorded in association with BBC Radio 3 at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 2007, has entered the Official UK Classical New Release Chart at No.1!

Critical acclaim for the recording includes:

* The Independent (5 star review)

* The Daily Telegraph (4 star review)

* The Financial Times (3 star review)

* The Observer (CD of the Week)

* The Guardian (4 star review)

* The Times (3 star review)

* The Sunday Times (Classical CD of the Week)

BBC Radio 3 Composer of the week this coming week is Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971). Click on the link below to view all available Stravinsky recordings in the EMI & Virgin Classics catalogue.

“dazzling performances by Evgeny Kissin, which also reveal this pianist’s increasing maturity as a musician. He finds the deeper inner inspiration of the music in the second concerto as well as the amazing virtuosity. The better-known third concerto combines wit and poetry and here Kissin, wonderfully accompanied by Ashkenazy and the orchestra, strikes a perfect balance between the elements.” - The Sunday Telegraph

The Sunday Times describes Piotr Anderszewski as “a formidable technician and an interpreter of outstanding musical taste and insight” in a programme “as intriguing as it is various.”

The Independent gave the EMI Classics recording of Adès’s The Tempest 5 stars, calling the work “the most significant opera of recent years.”

The Observer named The Tempest 'CD of the Week': “Yet another storming performance …. [with] luxury casting.”

The Daily Telegraph wrote, “This vivid live recording … Is magnificently sung and played.”

“The electricity of a live occasion surges through this recital of Bartók and Schumann … Just as the playing transmits a special glow and dynamism, so the programme sizzles with originality. … sheer artistry and interpretative candour are the overriding qualities of a performance that so forcefully taps the music’s central core of romantic expression. … A phenomenal recital.” ***** The Daily Telegraph

At the Phonographic Performance Ltd Annual General Meeting on 3 June, 2009, EMI Classics picked up an award for the classical work that was most played on radio last year: Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Adrian Boult. (British Composers series 0077776401522)

“As a rescue and rehabilitation job for one of Handel’s lesser-known (and unfairly maligned) scores, Virgin has done a super job with Faramondo. They’ve thrown both of their star countertenors at it and it’s a real treat to hear Max Emanuel Cencic and Philippe Jaroussky on the one set. It’s casting that will take some beating. Indeed, the whole thing is marvellously sung and played. Consider Faramondo rescued.

Editor's Choice, Gramophone, July 2009

“These musicians have all the hallmarks of excellence and it’s impossible not to be drawn to their empathy with the rhythmic vivacity and finer sensibilities of the music. Capuçon, who’s a telling presence in his collaborations with Martha Argerich, is no less of a presence here, exposing a range of emotions in the Adagio of K207, and the collaboration with an equally superb musician, Antoine Tamestit, in K364 is an exposé of skilled dovetailing, the sympathetic give and take at the heart of fine duo playing.”

Gramophone, July 2009

"From the opening Sinfonia of Bach's second Partita to the last of Bartók's Three Hungarian Folksongs from the Csik District, Anderszewski plays with extraordinary, compelling intensity. The Bach is wonderfully poised and crystalline, rhythms picked out with diamond precision, textures perfectly transparent. It is followed by an account of Schumann's Faschingsschwank aus Wien that is just about the best on disc ... This is playing of exceptional insight and finesse, which few other pianists today could match."

***** The Guardian

'The New Voice of Opera Royalty' is the cover story of the June 2009 issue of Classic FM Magazine, which has a six-page profile feature on Kate Royal and her new album Midsummer Night.

“With Piotr Anderszewski poised to give a rare London solo recital at the Southbank on June 9, this two-disc set provides a captivating reminder and foretaste of the intellectual power, profound emotional response and keen imagination that his playing conveys. … This is an outstanding release.”

***** The Daily Telegraph

"Here are two great soloists caught 'on the hoof', sparking off each other in a mix of quasi-improvisatory musicianship and collaborative verve. [Their recital] included violin sonatas by Bartók (No. 1) and Schumann (No. 2) which, in such fertile hands, communicate with rare intensity and expressive inwardness. Argerich captures the nerve-endings of Schumann's Kinderszenen, Kremer the inner core of Bartók's Solo Violin Sonata. ... A marvellous disc." The Financial Times

EMI Classics celebrates a double victory at the 2009 Classical BRIT Awards, the 10th anniversary show, which took place at the Royal Albert Hall on 14th May 2009. Trumpeter Alison Balsom was crowned Female Artist of the Year for the release of her recent album Haydn & Hummel Trumpet Concertos and Howard Goodall scooped Composer of the Year for his album Eternal Light - A Requiem.

Since being awarded Young British Classical Performer at the 2006 Classical BRIT Awards, glamorous trumpeter Alison Balsom’s career has gone from strength to strength. She is the only female classical trumpeter with an exclusive major label recording contract and at this year’s Classical BRIT Awards she was both the sole British artist and the sole instrumentalist nominated in the Female Artist of the Year category.

The Composer of the Year award went to Howard Goodall for his choral work Eternal Light – A Requiem. Howard Goodall is perhaps best known as the composer of various popular TV themes such as Blackadder, Red Dwarf and The Vicar of Dibley but is also a prodigious writer of choral music.

The Classical BRIT Awards 2009 with NS&I will be broadcast on ITV1, Tuesday 19 May at 10:35pm and again on ITV3, Sunday 24 May at 7:45pm.

Listen to Mark Lawson's interview with John Tavener on BBC Radio 4's Front Row programme. Broadcast on May 12, 2009, the interview, about Tavener's Requiem, is available online until May 18th.

“This marvellous disc is a real delight and triumphantly confirms Kate Royal as one of the finest British singers working today. […] The most striking thing about the recital is not just the lush beauty of Royal’s voice [but] the fullness of her tone and a wonderful, creamy richness at the top of the register. No: the most memorable thing about this collection is how marvellous a vocal actor Royal proves herself to be. […] At every turn [Royal] is ably partnered by [Edward] Gardner and the ENO Orchestra. […] This great disc only whets the appetite to hear Royal in more complete roles, and that is as high praise for a recital disc as I can imagine.”

Kate Royal talks about Midsummer Night to Jane Garvey on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour and to Sean Rafferty on BBC Radio 3's In Tune.

Hear her perform two Brahms lieder live on Radio 3 and listen to tracks by Dvořák, Floyd, Barber, Herrmann and Stravinsky from the new album.

"Simon Rattle has assembled a superb cast for Ravel's one act fantasy opera - in which animals sing and furniture comes to life ... The playing of the Berlin orchestra is of a stupendous refinement, capturing that Ravelian mixture of sophistication and innocence. In the Mother Goose suite, it is again hard not to marvel at how such attention to detail can be maintained without surrendering anything of the music's sensuous ebb and flow. "

***** The Daily Telegraph

"This Schumann and Bartók recital is a meeting of musical equals, with both on top form. [...] Hearing these two build their interpretations together and apart is like watching two great Shakespearean actors, each pushing the other to greater heights."

Queen of the Night is the title of a feature article that appeared in The Guardian about soprano Kate Royal and her new CD Midsummer Night .

"... I was taken aback by the melodic diversity and daring astringency of Tavener's [Requiem]. ... Vasily Petrenko sets a cavernous Mussorgsky-like atmosphere and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic soloists are sensational." **** Evening Standard

"Capuçon's silvery tone and expressive phrasing of the slow movements beautifully balance his brisk and exhilarating takes on the allegros and prestos. For the Sinfonia Concertante, Capuçon is joined by fello Frenchman, violist Antoine Tamestit to form a stylish partnership which overtly radiates warmth and sensitivity. These are outstanding performances, very persuasive in their exhilarating technical skills and above all in their genuinely moving inspiration. Don't miss this one." The Sunday Herald

Alison Balsom, Howard Goodall and Libera were amongst the nominations announced last night for the prestigious Classical BRIT Awards. Alison Balsom is nominated in the Best female category for her critically acclaimed recording of the Haydn & Hummel trumpet concertos, Howard Goodall is nominated in the Composer of the Year category for the best-selling album 'Eternal Light - A Requiem', and Libera is also nominated in the Young Performer of Group of the year category.

Evgeny Kissin’s recording of Prokofiev’s Piano Concertos Nos. 2 & 3 with the Philharmonia Orchestra under Vladimir Ashkenazy (available from 4th May) has been given a glowing 5-star review by Norman Lebrecht in the Evening Standard – “This is an absorbing record, absolutely indispensable.”

The critically acclaimed new recording of Puccini's 'Madama Butterfly' with Angela Gheorghiu, Jonas Kaufmann, and conducted by Antonio Pappano went straight in at No.1 in the official UK Classical Chart today, following its first week of release.