It’s been a year in which most live music has been silenced by the coronavirus and its associated restrictions, and yet paradoxically (and consequently) has also witnessed some of the most powerful and poignant performances many of us can recall. It was therefore with a perhaps unusually heightened sense of emotion that the Royal Philharmonic Society tonight unveiled its 2020 Awards, its annual celebration of classical music-making in the UK.

The online ceremony was opened by RPS Chairman John Gilhooly – particularly appropriate given that London’s Wigmore Hall, of which he is Artistic and Executive Director (and where the ceremony was held), proved foremost and indeed first in offering, and advocating for, live performance over the past year – with a speech challenging politicians and encouraging the wider classical community to make sure that our current if curtailed musical life survives the pandemic, and thrives thereafter.

‘The sector is making huge efforts to draw in audiences safely for live performance and we need those in power to look again and help us achieve all of this,’ he said, adding also that: ‘We need a faster solution for getting aid to the self-employed.’ Among other specific calls was for exemption from quarantine to be granted for artists travelling in and out of the country when this becomes possible again. ‘We need to draw on every resource we can to heal and rebuild our society, and cannot allow music to be neglected or overlooked in this,’ Gilhooly said.

But – as always, and as appropriate – the event was primarily about recognising and rewarding some of the finest artists of our day. Among the recipients was Dalia Stasevska, who conducted the broadcast Last Night of the Proms – a concert which attracted controversy in advance and largely praise afterwards – and who won the Conductor Award. Viola player Lawrence Power, whose recent projects include a series of commissions filmed in lockdown, was named Instrumentalist of the Year. Cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, who together with his siblings regularly invited virtual audiences into his family home to witness uplifting music-making during lockdown, was named best Young Artist. Gramophone’s current young Artist of the Year, meanwhile, soprano Natalya Romaniw, took the RPS’s Singer Award.

Specific live events and series honoured included Kings Place’s year-long celebration of female composers Venus Unwrapped, while Garsington Opera’s The Turn of the Screw won the Opera and Music Theatre Award. Performances associated with the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival claimed two prizes - Naomi Pinnock’s I am, I am in the Chamber-Scale Composition category and, in the Large-Scale Composition category, Frank Denyer’s The Fish that Became the Sun (Songs of the Dispossessed).

The RPS Awards regularly highlight organisations that seek to transform lives through music, or indeed to transform our understanding of music’s place in society itself. Recognised this year was the City of London Sinfonia’s Sound Young Minds, which, working alongside Bethlem and Maudsley Hospital School ‘defined how classical musicians can play a transformative role in the lives of teenagers with mental health issues.’ A newly created Inspiration Award directly sought to recognise organisations and ideas whose work had, in the words of the RPS, ‘uplifted the nation in lockdown’. The six recipients were Concerteenies (a concert series for babies and toddlers), the Diocese of Leeds Schools Singing Programme (which brought daily YouTube singing sessions to 4500 children, and offered 18 weekly online choir rehearsals, in some of the most deprived areas of Yorkshire), The Opera Story (a series of mini operas), Stay At Home Choir (which enabled amateurs to sing with, and learn from, guest artists including The Sixteen, The King’s Singers and Sir James MacMillan), #UriPosteJukeBox (offering 88 days of performances by violinist Elena Urioste and pianist Tom Poster) and the Virtual Benedetti Sessions from one of the UK’s leading violinists. The first ever RPS award open to the public, it received 2600 nominations.

Finally, a number of awards went to some of the most prominent artists today, including the prestigious Gold Medal to composer John Williams, the Gamechanger Award to conductor Jane Glover for, as the citation put it, ‘carving a path for women conductors, long before it became a movement’, and the Storytelling Award to pianist (author, artist, composer…) Stephen Hough for his fascinating, thought-provoking and beautifully written book, Rough Ideas.

The ceremony is available to watch on demand at the Royal Philharmonic Society's website.