2009 Gramophone Award goes elsewhere

By Claude Peck The Minnesota Orchestra, which was nominated for the first time this year for a prestigious Gramophone Award, lost in the "orchestral" category when awards were announced Oct. 2. That award was given to the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, conducted by Vasily Petrenko, for its recording on the Naxos label of Tchaikovsky's "Manfred" symphony. The MO and conductor Osmo Vanska were nominated for the 2008 recording on the BIS label of Beethoven symphonies no. 2 and 7, part of the complete Beethoven symphonies recorded over the past several years. A scan of the winners in the 15 CD categories (opera, concerto, historic reissue, contemporary, instrumental, etc.) shows that most winners of the British-based awards were British or European, with nary a single victor from the United States. The Gramophone Artist of the Year went to British choir The Sixteen, and the Young Artist of the Year prize was won by 23-year-old pianist Yuja Wang, who played a recital in the Twin Cities in March of this year, at the Chopin Society. For the complete list of Gramophone winners, go to http://www.gramophone.co.uk/awards/disc-award/early-music Meanwhile, the Minnesota Orchestra announced that all five discs in its recordings of the nine symphonies of Beethoven have been issued in a box set by BIS. The boxes were not available at Barnes & Noble in downtown Minneapolis as of this posting. Nor were they listed on the orchestra's website. Stay posted for news about price and availability.