Brit Award for RLPO

Yeah, we might be staging the MOBOs again next month, but we’ve got a two-times Brit winner proudly ensconced at the other end of town. And, as anyone who heard their blistering performance at this summer’s BBC Proms will attest, the latest accolade bestowed on our adopted son of St Petersburg is well deserved.

Vasily Petrenko, Chief Conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, was announced as Best Male Artist at the Classic BRIT Awards 2012 at London’s Royal Albert Hall this week.

Petrenko was the Classic BRIT Awards Best Male Artist in 2010. As in 2010, his 2012 award recognises his critically acclaimed recordings with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra of the music of Shostakovich and Rachmaninov (he loves a fiery Russian. Who doesn’t?).

The Classic BRIT Awards, the classical equivalent of the Grammys or BRITs, saw our boy beat off stiff competition in the ‘Best Male Artist’ category from pianist Lang Lang and tenor Andrea Boccelli.

Speaking from San Francisco (yeah, he sees other orchestras. But it’s ok. We’re cool with it), Petrenko said: “Thank you to the BPI for this prestigious award. I’m honoured to receive it for a second time, and to be nominated again in the same category as such great artists. And thank you especially to the musicians of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. We are enjoying a great musical journey together and this award is for them as much as me.”

Congratulations all round, we say. And, of course, we also say get up to Hope Street if you’ve still not witnessed the thrill of Petrenko and RLPO in full flow. We recommend his interpretation of Shostakovich’s Symphony No10 and Brahm’s Second Piano Concerto, on November 11.

Liverpool Philharmonic
Hope Street
Liverpool

Pic: Mark McNulty