International Classical Music Awards Announce 2025 Winners

Among the prizewinners include violinists Gidon Kremer and Vilde Frang

Based in Luxembourg, the International Classical Music Awards (ICMA) recognizes outstanding artists and is open to all classical audio and video productions released commercially worldwide. 

For its 2025 edition, the award winners were selected from a nomination list of 374 releases and varying artists and labels. 

Among the winners are violinist Gidon Kremer, who was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award; conductor Leonardo García Alarcón was named Artist of the Year; cellist Benjamin Kruithof received Young Artist of the Year; and pianist Can Saraç was given the Discovery Award. 

The Composer Award went to Christoph Ehrenfellner; Label of the Year is BR Klassik; the ICMA-Classeek Award went to cellist Ettore Pagano; and Special Achievement Award went to conductor Adam Fischer, pianist Oliver Triendl, and the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra. 

In the audio and video categories, 17 productions have been awarded, including artists such as Vilde Frang, Unsuk Chin, Anna Gourari, Marin Alsop, Andreas Scholl, Samuel Hasselhorn, and more.

The winners will receive their ICMA trophies on March 19, 2025, at the Tonhalle in Düsseldorf, which will also host a Gala Concert featuring several award winners alongside the Düsseldorf Symphony led by Fischer.

The 2025 international jury comprised Serhan Bali, Pierre-Jean Tribot, Frauke Adrians, Anastassia Boutsko, Martin Hoffmeister, Nicola Catto, Andrea Meuli, John Allison, David Zsoldos, Rémy Franck, Ursula Magnes, Jakub Puchalski, Luc Boentges, Cristina Comandasu, Maciej Chizynski, Harri Kuusisaari, Juan Lucas, Sanda Vojkovic, and Franz Patay. 

The full list of 2025 ICMA winners can be viewed here. 

“The winner list comprises many renowned as well as young musicians and no less than 17 international labels!” ICMA’s jury president Remy Franck said in the press release. “We include again the ICMA Classeek Award which is organized in collaboration with the digital platform Classeek and continue our long-lasting cooperation with the International Music Academy Liechtenstein, so that together with the Young Artist Award, we can promote three young and highly promising talents. 

“Our awards are recognitions of excellence in musical performance,” he added. “They can provide — and have already provided, as many of our previous winners can acknowledge — many benefits for the winners, artists as well as labels, enhancing reputation and increasing personal motivation. We have assurance that the full benefit of our awards will be felt by all our winners.”