Congratulations to Gramophone Classical Music Awards 2026 Artist of the Year and Concerto winner Isabelle Faust and Opera winner Nicholas Phan! The winners were selected from a shortlist of 66 recordings (six in each of the 11 recording categories).<\/p>\n
Isabelle Faust<\/strong><\/a> CONCERTO<\/strong><\/a> “However, the award belongs above all to Isabelle Faust. We expect uncanny precision and agility from her, though the Violin Concerto\u2019s opening from nowhere still defies explanation as a feat of coordination. Anyone on the wavelength of her Mozart and Brahms recordings should appreciate the classical poise and inward feeling of the following \u2018Aria\u2019, coloured with myriad shades of vibrato.”<\/p>\n Nicholas Phan<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n OPERA<\/strong><\/a> “Saariaho\u2019s opera deserves to be taken seriously because it is, for all its occasional longueurs, strangely compelling in its grimly unfolding but hypnotic tale of a brutalised father\u2019s sins, and the journey to discover where forgiveness sits.”<\/p>\n View all the winners.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Congratulations to Gramophone Classical Music Awards 2026 Artist of the Year and Concerto winner Isabelle Faust and Opera winner Nicholas Phan! The winners were selected from a shortlist of 66 recordings (six in each of the 11 recording categories). Isabelle Faust ARTIST OF THE YEAR\u00a0 “Bach duo-playing of \u2018exemplary engagement and purring quality\u2019; a stunningly … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19085,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3636,3685,7540,7541,4853,4622,3705,3857,3669,7008],"class_list":["post-19083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-album","tag-concerto","tag-gramophone","tag-gramophone-awards","tag-isabelle-faust","tag-nicholas-phan","tag-opera","tag-tenor","tag-violin","tag-winner"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19083"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19086,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19083\/revisions\/19086"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/19085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nARTIST OF THE YEAR\u00a0<\/strong>
\n“Bach duo-playing of \u2018exemplary engagement and purring quality\u2019; a stunningly dramatic Ligeti Violin Concerto climaxing on a cadenza of \u2018dazzling desperation\u2019; a Telemann programme played with \u2018all the finesse, colour and flamboyant theatricality [his] cosmopolitan music demands\u2019: three quotes from three different Gramophone critics\u2019 reviews of three separate 2025 albums starring Isabelle Faust \u2013 all three of which turned up on the 2026 Gramophone Awards shortlist, her Ligeti alongside Les Si\u00e8cles and Fran\u00e7ois-Xavier Roth ultimately scooping the overall Concerto Award. With all that considered, to say \u2013 even in the context of the fact that Faust rarely doesn\u2019t end up at least shortlisted for a Gramophone Award \u2013 that she has both had a prolific year for new releases and cut a serious dash with them in these pages is to understate things by a country mile.” Read more<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\nLigeti \u00b7 Kurt\u00e1g
\nKurt\u00e1g Aus der Ferne \u2013 III; V
\nLigeti Concert Rom\u00e2nesc. Piano Concerto. Violin Concerto
\nIsabelle Faust, Martial Gauthier vn Carole Roth va Robin Michael vc Jean-Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Neuburger pf Les Si\u00e8cles \/ Fran\u00e7ois-Xavier Roth
\nHarmonia Mundi<\/p>\n
\nSaariaho Adriana Mater
\nFleur Barron, Axelle Fanyo, Christopher Purves bar Tsargo
\nSan Francisco Symphony Chorus and Orchestra \/ Esa-Pekka Salonen
\nDeutsche Grammophon<\/p>\n