Musicians’ Company Prince’s Prize Announces 2024 Winner

Northumbrian bass-baritone Michael Ronan has won the award with a £5,000 honorarium

Founded in 2004, the UK’s Worshipful Company of Musicians’ (Musicians’ Company) Prince’s Prize was established to mark the installation of the former Prince of Wales as an Honorary Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Musicians in 2003. 

Awarded annually, the prize recognizes a promising young instrumentalist or singer amongst the Company’s Award winners. 

The Northumbrian bass-baritone Michael Ronan has received an award of £5,000, with a silver medal after being judged the most promising artist from the Company’s award winners this year by a panel of adjudicators. 

Additionally, the company’s Prudi Hoggarth Audience Prize was awarded to the accompanist Zany Denyer. This year’s judging panel comprised conductor Alice Farnham, baritone Donald Maxwell, and pianist Lucy Parham. 

Applications for the prize are invited annually from the current winners of certain Company prizes and scholarships. The first round is judged on recorded performances; finalists compete publicly at a venue in London.

Ronan studied at London’s Royal College of Music (RAM), where he was supported by the Sainsbury Award, The Countess of Munster Musical Trust, and the Josephine Baker Trust. 

His recent awards include RAM’s 2022 Bicentenary Prize, plus the Joan Chissell Schumann Lieder Prize, Thomas Armstrong English Song Prize, and the Blyth-Buesst Opera Prize. In 2023, he joined the Jerwood Young Artist Program at Glyndebourne Festival Opera.

Ronan’s recent projects included playing Masetto in Don Giovanni at the Glyndebourne Opera; his upcoming performances include playing Herr Reich in The Merry Wives of Windsor, with Sinfonieorchester GmbH and conductor Johannes Witt.