PSO Wins Prestigious International Award

For Immediate Release
May 16, 2012

PITTSBURGH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA WINS PRESTIGIOUS INTERNATIONAL AWARD FOR MAHLER 4 RECORDING

PITTSBURGH – The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (PSO) on Tuesday received a prestigious International Classical Music Award (ICMA) trophy during the annual Award Ceremony in Nantes, France. The award-winning Exton recording featured Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, conducted by Music Director Manfred Honeck and featuring soprano Sunhae Im.

Honeck, who is in Pittsburgh, said, “The members of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and I are very excited to receive this recognition for our work. It is a great honor to have been chosen by this very distinguished jury. … Having grown up in Vienna, I feel a personal connection with Mahler’s music and I try to bring some special Viennese elements to the interpretation of these works.”

The May 15 awards ceremony featured a Gala Concert at La Cité, with the participation of some of ICMA winners and the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire conducted by its music director John Axelrod. France Musique and other radio stations of the European Broadcasting Union's worldwide network broadcast the concert live.

The Jury of the International Classical Music Awards announced the winners for 2012 in February in Vienna. The International Classical Music Awards are the preeminent awards for classical music on an international level. The jury consists of leading music critics and editors of the most important magazines, online services and radio stations: Andante (Turkey), Crescendo (Belgium), Fono Forum (Germany), Gramofon (Hungary), IMZ (Austria), MDR-Figaro (Germany), Musica (Italy), Musik & Theater (Switzerland), Orpheus Radio (Russia), Pizzicato (Luxembourg), Radio 100.7 (Luxembourg), Resmusica.com (France), Scherzo (Spain) and Viva Classica (Finland).

The PSO’s award-winning recording was nominated alongside Exton’s release of another PSO recording – Mahler’s Symphony No. 3, featuring mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung, the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh, and Children’s Festival Chorus of Pittsburgh.


PSO’s recordings of Mahler’s Third, Fourth and Fifth symphonies are available at http://pittsburghsymphonyorchestra.bigcartel.com/category/cds and at Heinz Hall, 600 Penn Ave., downtown. PSO recordings are made possible by a generous grant from BNY Mellon.

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Contact: James Barthen, Vice President of Public Affairs
Phone: 412.392.4835 | email: jbarthen@pittsburghsymphony.org


Contact: Ramesh Santanam, Director of Media Relations
Phone: 412.392.4827 | email: rsantanam@pittsburghsymphony.org

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