The 2024 Gramophone Classical Music Awards ceremony, presented with Presto Music, will live long in the memory. At the ceremony we celebrated some truly remarkable recordings as well as some special life-long contributions to classical music. Below is a picture gallery of some of this year's winners, captured on the evening of the Awards...

Cappella Pratensis’s conductor Stratton Bull receives the Early Music Award for their recording of Obrecht's Missa Maria zart. Gramophone critic Lindsay Kemp said of this recording: 'Cappella Pratensis support the grand ebb and flow of this miraculous piece with a sure grasp - an extraordinary achievement'.

Violinist Hilary Hahn with the Instrumental Award, which she received for her recording of Ysaÿe’s Violin Sonatas, a recording about which Charlotte Gardner wrote, ‘it’s hard to imagine how any future recording could possibly give the listener anything of greater artistic or sonic worth’.

Chief Executive Henry Little (second from right) collects the Label of the Year Award for Opera Rara.

To celebrate Opera Rara's Label of the Year Award, tenor Iván-Ayón Rivas sings Arturo’s aria from Mercadante’s Il proscritto, joined by Anna Tilbrook at the piano.

The winning album in the Contemporary category (sponsored by PRS For Music and PPL) is an album of the music of Kaija Saariaho, featuring Olivier Latry and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and Orchestre National de France, and conductors Ernest Martinez Izquierdo, Hannu Lintu and Olari Elts, on Radio France. Director of Music at Radio France, Michel Orier, receives the Award.

The winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award is Michael Tilson Thomas who was unable to attend the ceremony, actor Simon Callow pays tribute to the great conductor and composer.

Conductor Andrew Manze receives the Orchestral Award – sponsored by Lark Music – for a wonderful album of Vaughan Williams’s music, including Job, A Masque for Dancing, with the RLPO on the Onyx label. ‘Scrupulously prepared and boasting some superbly coordinated, infectiously dedicated playing from the RLPO’, as our reviewer Andrew Achenbach put it.

Artistic Planning Director (Orchestra and Ensembles) of the RLPO Sandra Parr with Andrew Manze, winners of the 2024 Orchestral Award.

The winner of this year's Artist of the Year Award, sponsored by Classic FM, is soprano Carolyn Sampson.

Artist of the Year Carolyn Sampson sings Duparc’s L’invitation au voyage.

Frequent collaborators Carolyn Sampson and Joseph Middleton perform at the Gramophone Classical Music Awards to celebrate Sampson's Artist of the Year Award.

Violinist Isabelle Faust receives the Chamber Award for her recording of Schumann’s Piano Quartet and Quintet, made alongside Anne Katharina Schreiber, Antoine Tamestit, Jean-Guihen Queyras and Alexander Melnikov for Harmonia Mundi. ‘There’s something new to discover almost everywhere on this beautifully-engineered recording’, writes Andrew Farach-Colton of their album.

This year the Choral Award was won by a recording of Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius from the Polish National Youth Choir, the Gabrieli Consort & Players and Paul McCreesh (pictured), with soloists Nicky Spence, Anna Stéphany and Andrew Foster-Williams on Signum Classics. According to critic Richard Lawrence, ‘This recording by Paul McCreesh, the first on period instruments, is up there with the best of them’.

Isabelle Faust returns to the stage – with violin in hand – to be presented with the Concerto Award for her recording of Britten’s Violin Concerto and chamber works with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and conductor Jakub Hrůša, on Harmonia Mundi. Gramophone critic David Threasher wrote, ‘This is sure to become a modern benchmark for the Concerto’.

To celebrate her double-Award win (Chamber and Concerto categories), Isabelle Faust performs Matteis the Elder's Ayres for the Violin...

Pianist Yunchan Lim achieved the remarkable feat of having two recordings in the three-album shortlist for the Piano Award (sponsored by Kawai). He won the Piano Award for his recording of Chopin’s Études on Decca. Here he receives the Award from the Editor of International Piano and Deputy Editor of Gramophone, Tim Parry.

The winner of our Young Artist of the Year Award in 2022, soprano Fatma Said, returned to the Gramophone Awards to reveal the winner of this year's Young Artist Award...

Pianist Yunchan Lim returns to the stage to receive Gramophone's 2024 Young Artist of the Year Award, sponsored by Classeek, from Fatma Said.

Gramophone's Young Artist of the Year 2024: pianist Yunchan Lim.

Yunchan Lim performs Liszt’s Petrarch Sonnet No 104 at the 2024 Gramophone Classical Music Awards ceremony.

Gramophone's Young Artist of the Year Yunchan Lim plays Liszt at the Awards ceremony.

Violinist Hilary Hahn receives the 2024 Gramophone Recording of the Year Award from the Controller of BBC Radio 3 and of the BBC Proms, Sam Jackson.

Hilary Hahn wins Gramophone's Recording of the Year Award for her account of Ysaÿe's Six Sonatas for Violin Solo, Op 27, on DG.

Portraits from the ceremony

Pianist Yunchan Lim with his two Awards: Piano category winner and Young Artist of the Year.

Conductor Paul McCreesh with the Choral Award, won for his recording of Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius.

Conductor Stratton Bull, winner of this year's Early Music Award for Obrecht's Missa Maria zart.

The 2024 Artist of the Year, soprano Carolyn Sampson.

Winner of this year's Orchestral Award, conductor Andrew Manze.

Violinist Hilary Hahn, who this year won two Gramophone Awards – the Instrumental category and Recording of the Year – for her recording of of Ysaÿe's Six Sonatas for Violin Solo, Op 27, on DG.

Explore all of this year's Gramophone Award winners in the 2024 Awards issue – out now. Never miss an issue – subscribe today