The shortlist for this years RPS Music Awards, which recognise the most outstanding achievements in live classical music, were announced this afternoon. Shortlisted in the Conductor category are Sir John Eliot Gardiner, the Music Director of the CBSO Andris Nelsons and the RLPO's Chief Conductor Vasily Petrenko. The RLPO are also shortlisted in the Ensemble category alongside the Arditti Quartet (who celebrated their 40th anniversary last year) and the London Contemporary Orchestra. 

There are two composition categories, one for Chamber-Scale Composition (which features Graham Fitkin's Distil, Julian Anderson's String Quartet No 2 and Liza Lim's Winding Bodies, 3 Knots) and one for Large-Scale Composition (shortlisted works are Hans Abrahamsen's Let me tell you..., John Casken's Apollinaire's Bird and Simon Holt's Morpheus Wakes).

The full RPS Music Awards shortlist is as follows:

Audiences and Engagement

Crowd Out (David Lang/BCMG/Spitalfields Music), Multi-Story, Philharmonia iOrchestra

Chamber Music and Song

Arditti Quartet, Oxford Lieder

Chamber-Scale Composition

Graham Fitkin Distil, Julian Anderson String Quartet No 2, Liza Lim Winding Bodies, 3 Knots

Concert Series and Festivals

Barbican - Birtwistle at 80, East Neuk Festival, Oxford Lieder

Conductor

Andris Nelsons, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Vasily Petrenko

Creative Communication

Fiona Maddocks – Wild Tracks: Conversations with Harrison Birtwistle (Faber Books), Graham Johnson – Franz Schubert, the complete songs Vols 1, 2 & 3 (Yale University Press), Royal Opera House - The Opera Machine

Ensemble

Arditti Quartet, London Contemporary Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra

Instrumentalist

Colin Currie, James Ehnes, Lawrence Power

Large-Scale Composition

Hans Abrahamsen Let me tell you..., John Casken Apollinaire's Bird, Simon Holt Morpheus Wakes

Learning and Participation

Manchester Camerata – Music in Mind, Britten's War Requiem (Southbank Centre), Sage Gateshead

Opera and Music Theatre

English National Opera, Royal Opera House - Die Frau ohne Schatten, Taliesin Arts Centre – Under Milk Wood (John Metcalf)

Singer

Christian Gerhaher, Mark Padmore, Nina Stemme

Young Artists

Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Jack Quartet, Mary Bevan

The awards will be announced on the evening of May 5 and a programme dedicated to the awards will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on May 11 at 7.30pm.