French harpsichordist Jean Rondeau and German violinist Isabelle Faust were among the winners at the 2026 Gramophone Classical Music Awards, announced at a ceremony in London on Wednesday night.
Rondeau won the Recording of the Year award for his ambitious recording of the complete works of Louis Couperin, a landmark project for the Erato label.
The 10-CD and DVD set, which also won the Instrumental Award, was released to mark the 400th anniversary of Couperin’s birth. It contains around 300 works and 12 hours of music, recorded on some of Europe’s oldest and rarest harpsichords and organs.
Gramophone described the project as “a statement of rare vision and confidence from both artist and record label”.
The awards, presented in association with Presto Music, saw German violinist Isabelle Faust take two of the evening’s major honours, being named Artist of the Year and winning the Concerto Award for her recording of György Ligeti’s Violin Concerto.
Faust’s recording, made with Les Siècles and conductor François-Xavier Roth, is coupled with Jean-Frédéric Neuburger’s performance of Ligeti’s Piano Concerto on Harmonia Mundi.
The violinist, who was previously named Gramophone’s Young Artist of the Year in 1997, has been a favourite of the awards, collecting Recording of the Year in 2017 and two honours in 2024.
“Always one to intrigue, delight and surprise us where sometimes we least expect it, Faust this year has exceeded herself,” Gramophone said.
Faust accepted her awards in person and performed Mozart at the ceremony with pianist Kristian Bezuidenhout.
Dame Imogen Cooper was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award, recognising a career spanning decades on the concert platform and in the recording studio.
Renowned particularly for her interpretations of Schubert, Cooper first appeared in Gramophone in 1977 and has subsequently featured in the magazine more than 200 times.
Cooper, who announced earlier this year that her final public performance will take place in 2027, said she was “frankly in shock” when she heard she would receive the award.
Pianist Alexander Malofeev, 24, was named Young Artist of the Year. The Russian-born musician has quickly established an international career, performing at venues including Carnegie Hall and Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw. He was praised for his “formidable technique with a kaleidoscopic imagination and a flair for creative programming”.
Erato was named Label of the Year after a strong showing across the awards, including victories for Rondeau’s Recording of the Year and Instrumental Award, as well as the Piano Award for Bertrand Chamayou and Leif Ove Andsnes’ Schubert album.
The Bamberg Symphony won Orchestra of the Year, the only award decided by public vote, recognising its recording work and decade-long partnership with chief conductor Jakub Hrůša.
Other winners included the Pavel Haas Quartet for Martinů’s string quartets, Esa-Pekka Salonen and the San Francisco Symphony for Kaija Saariaho’s Adriana Mater, and the Hallé Orchestra and Sir Mark Elder for music by Huw Watkins.
Sakari Oramo and the BBC Symphony Orchestra also took home the award in the Orchestral category for their recording of Grażyna Bacewicz, while the award for Early Music went to Rinaldo Alessandrini and Concerto Italiano.
Gramophone editor Martin Cullingford said the winners demonstrated the “extraordinary range and brilliance” of recordings released over the past year.
