George Benjamin wins 2014 Critics’ Circle Award for Outstanding Musician

George Benjamin

Composer George Benjamin has won the Award for Outstanding Musician in the 2014 Critics' Circle Awards. In presenting the award, Chair of the Critics’ Circle’s Music Section, Guy Dammann, referred to Benjamin's 'beautifully crafted work', and how his opera Written on Skin 'seems to have awakened a new force in the composer and opened up deeper reaches in his musical imagination'. Also receiving awards were soprano Mary Bevan, composer Charlotte Bray and pianist Igor Levit, each being awarded in the Critics’ Circle Awards for Exceptional Young Talent in music, which go to performers under 35

Benjamin's opera Written on Skin was premiered in 2013, and he and Martin Crimp are working on a new opera to be premiered at Covent Garden in 2018. Mary Bevan is currently singing Susanna in Mozart's Marriage of Figaro at the London Coliseum, and will be performing in the Royal Opera's production of L'Orfeo at the Roundhouse. Charlotte Bray's debut disc is being released this month by NMC Records with Sir Mark Elder conductor the Aldeburgh World Orchestra. Igor Levit's recording of Bach's six keyboard partitas, was named Gramophone Magazine's recording of the month for October 2014.

Founded in 1913, the Critics’ Circle is the professional association of British and Britain-based critics; each section of the Critics’ Circle has its own Awards. The Music Section awards were reinstated in 2011 and are now in their fourth year. The Critics’ Circle Awards are voted for by the 89 members of the Critics’ Circle’s Music Section, in recognition of musical activities in the United Kingdom during the previous calendar year.