English National Opera gains RPS awards nomination

Verdi's La Traviata is one of the ENO's most recent productions

The English National Opera (ENO) is among the nominees for this year's Royal Philharmonic Society (RPS) awards.

The ENO is shortlisted in the opera and music theatre category.

It comes after the ENO was placed under "special funding arrangements" by Arts Council England.

In other categories, there are double nods for the Oxford Lieder Festival, the Royal Opera House and the Arditti Quartet, in its 40th anniversary year.

The winners will be announced at a ceremony in London on May.

Competing with the ENO in the opera and music theatre category is the Royal Opera House's production of Strauss's Die Frau ohne Schatten and John Metcalf's opera based on Dylan Thomas's radio play Under Milk Wood.

In February, Arts Council England said the ENO must improve its business model or face funding cuts.

It had already cut the ENO's funding by 29%, which prompted some of world's most prestigious opera companies to sign a public letter condemning the cuts.

Younger artists

There is a strong showing in the RPS awards for younger artists with all the solo instrumentalists and three quarters of the conductors nominated being under 40.

Percussionist Colin Currie, violist James Ehnes and violinist Lawrence Power are competing in the instrumentalist category.

While in the conductor category John Eliot Gardiner, Andri Nelsons and Vasily Petrenko are nominated.

In the singer category Swedish soprano Nina Stemme is up against English tenor Mark Padmore and German baritone Christian Gerhaher.

A programme dedicated to the awards will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 11 May at 19:30 BST.

Nominations in full:

Audiences and Engagement

• Crowd Out: David Lang/Birmingham Contemporary Music Group/Spitalfields Music

• Multi-Story

• Philharmonia iOrchestra (SW England)

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

• John Eliot Gardiner

• Vasily Petrenko

Creative Communication

• Fiona Maddocks: Wild Tracks - Conversations with Harrison Birtwistle (Faber Books)

• Graham Johnson: Franz Schubert; The Complete Songs Volumes 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 by John Metcalf

Singer

• Christian Gerhaher

• Mark Padmore

• Nine Stemme

Young Artists

• Andres Orozco-Estrada

• JACK Quartet

• Mary Bevan