German Record Critics’ Award Names 2024 Winners

Overall, 28 winners have been announced from categories featuring genres from symphonic music to rock and hip hop

Music critics and journalists from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland have judged and announced the winners of the third quarterly list for the 2024 German Record Critics’ Award (PdSK).

Honoring outstanding music and word productions, the award publishes its “best lists” every quarter and also presents annual and honorary awards, plus its Nightingale of the Year Award.

The PdSK’s 156 critics, divided into 32 expert juries, reviewed all new releases on the recording market from the last quarter and placed 280 titles on the longlist, from which 28 winning titles were selected to the best list. 

Five experts per jury identified and evaluated the best list candidates — nominated titles cover the entire spectrum of diverse genres, from symphonic music, opera, harpsichord music, jazz, and word art, to folklore, heavy metal, rock, and hip hop music. 

Winners include violinist Isabelle Faust’s album of Benjamin Britten’s Violin Concerto and chamber works released on harmonia mundi. The album also features Boris Faust, Alexander Melnikov, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and Jakub Hrůša.

More winners include Sergey Khachatryan for his album of Ysaÿe’s Six Sonatas for solo violin, Antje Weithaas and Dénes Várjon performing a selection of Beethoven’s violin sonatas, singers Nancy Vieira and Malin Lewis, and Susanne Aßmann and Lisa Ossowski for their radio play: “Alice and what she found in wonder.”

For the full list of winners in each of the 32 categories, click here.

The board of the PdSK eV currently includes jurors Albrecht Thiemann, Julia Kaiser, and Sabrina Palm. The assessors are Carsten Niemann and Joachim Mischke, and Ingo Harden serves as honorary chairman. For the full list of jurors, click here.