Classic FM Gramophone Awards 2009

The 12 months from mid-2008 to mid-2009 have produced what seasoned Awards watchers might consider a vintage year.

As always, we invited the record industry to nominate a proportion of their (new) releases drawn from the beginning of June 2008 to the end of May 2009. This long list of nearly 500 recordings was reduced by panels of specialist voters to just six discs in each of the 15 categories. At this point, any Gramophone critic could opt into as many categories as he or she wanted. Over the course of the summer, music was consumed, evaluated, discussed and finally voted upon. This produced the winner in each category.

For the Recording of the Year a panel of critics spent a long morning discussing the 15 category winners, weighing up their merits, considering whether they added that something special to the vast and well-stocked record catalogue that has grown up over the past century.

In addition to the 15 recording awards, we make, as usual, a number of special awards – a public vote gives us the Artist of the Year and the Music in the Community Awards, and votes by Gramophone’s editorial team secure the other winners.