INNOVATION AWARD NOMINATING COMMITTEE 2022

The nominees for the Classical:NEXT 2022 Innovation Award will be selected by a committee of 15 music journalists and experts from 13 countries from around the world, whose work focuses on renewal and trends in classical music. The Nominating Committee, which includes our Industry Insider, is not fixed and varies every year. These are the members for 2022, in alphabetical order:

Máté Csabai (Hungary)

Máté Csabai is an award-winning journalist and critic in Budapest. He has served as an editor for the Fidelio, one of the main classical music journals of Hungary. Currently working as a freelancer, he devotes himself to bringing quality journalism to larger audiences.

 

Harriet Cunningham (Australia)

Harriet Cunningham is a freelance writer and researcher based in Sydney, Australia. In print, she is best known as one of the Sydney Morning Herald's music and theatre critics. She is addicted to listening and thinking about live music – any kind of live performance, in fact. She has been known to play the violin.

 

Romina de la Sotta Donoso (Chile)

A Chilean journalist covering classical music since 2001, Romina de la Sotta has written in newspapers and in Resonancias, the musicological research journal of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. She worked as Radio Beethoven's journalist between 2002 and 2008 and again from 2020 to the present. He has interviewed hundreds of composers, performers and conductors from Chile and around the world.

 

Photo by Corinna Desch

Jessica Duchen (UK)

Jessica Duchen is a music critic, author and librettist. She contributes to The Sunday Times, The I and BBC Music Magazine, and her libretti include Roxanna Panufnik’s Silver Birch, shortlisted for an International Opera Award in 2018. Her latest book is the novel Immortal, about Beethoven’s ‘immortal beloved’.

 

Lorena Jiménez (Spain)

Lorena Jiménez is a musicologist, classical critic and PR manager. Her reviews and interviews have appeared in magazines such as Ritmo, Audioclásica, Pro Ópera and La Scena Musicale. She has a degree in Musicology from the University of Oviedo and a Master's in Arts Administration from the University of Dresden.

 

David Kettle (UK)

David Kettle is a journalist and writer on music based in Edinburgh, Scotland, with a particular interest in contemporary music. He is a music critic for The Scotsman, The Daily Telegraph and The Arts Desk, and writes widely across numerous other publications.

 

Gianluigi Mattietti (Italy)

Born in Rome, Gianluigi Mattietti completed his musical studies in composition and electronic music at the Conservatory of Rome and has a doctoral degree in musicology. He was professor in composition at the Conservatory of Cagliari until 2006, then professor in musicology at the University of Cagliari. He is a music critic for Italian music magazines, on the board of the Italian Music Critics Association and writes essays and books about contemporary music.

 

Photo by Edvard Blaževič / Lithuanian National Radio and Television

Rasa Murauskaitė (Lithuania)

Rasa Murauskaitė is a Lithuanian music critic and culture journalist, lecturer, event presenter and senior editor of radio LRT KLASIKA. She has published more than 300 texts on musical culture, is an author of radio shows dedicated to contemporary music, as well a co-author of three books.

 

Photo by Sławomir Wojciechowski

Monika Pasiecznik (Poland)

Monika Pasiecznik is a new music critic and curator from Poland. She writes for Polish and international new music magazines, cooperates with Polish Radio Program 2 and many cultural institutions. As a curator she has collaborated with festivals such as Warsaw Autumn, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival and Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music.

 

Mauricio Peña Cediel (Colombia)

Mauricio has worked as executive director of the Bogota Philharmonic Orchestra, as head of music of Bogota’s Culture, Recreation and Sports Bureau, as artistic administrator for the Colombian National Symphony Orchestra, and as head of Banco de la República’s music division. He now directs MPC Music Management, providing artist management, booking, consulting and production services.

 

Photo by Fernanda Rodrigues

João Luiz Sampaio (Brazil)

Journalist and music critic Joao Luiz Sampaio writes for the Brazilian newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo and is executive-editor of the magazine Concerto, as well as the Brazilian correspondant for the spanish magazine Scherzo. As a journalist, he has visited Brazil, the USA, Europe, Asia and the Middle East and is a professor of music history and author of books on the subject.

 

René Solís Brun (Mexico)

Born in Mexico, René Solís Brun graduated with an MBA from Harvard in 1958. He worked in the manufacturing and retail sectors before joining the publishing sector. He worked first in magazines, then books and now with digital platforms/newsletters/online radio in Spanish, all free access and dedicated to widening classical music appreciation and horizons. He founded musicamexico.com.mx eight and a half years ago. He has been a music aficionado all his life and has attended several Classical:NEXT events.

 

Matthijs van Dijk (S. Africa)

Matthijs van Dijk is a composer and arranger based in Cape Town, South Africa, who has written several commissions for numerous ensembles, such as the Carnegie Hall affiliated Decoda Ensemble, I Musicanti & Peter Donohoe, the LGT Young Soloists, & the Signum Quartet. In 2016, van Dijk collaborated with Rivonia trialist and freedom fighter Denis Goldberg with their piece ‘Moments In A Life’.

 

Brian Wise (USA)

Brian Wise is a journalist, producer and editor based in New York. His writing has appeared in publications including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, BBC Music Magazine and MusicalAmerica.com. He is the producer of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s national radio series. He is also the editor of Overtones, the Curtis Institute of Music’s magazine, and is a contributing editor to Strings.

 

Industry Insider

The Industry Insiders cover areas of the music industry which often go under the radar and aren't in the public eye. Therefore members of these sectors may be deserving of an Innovation Award, yet would be overseen without the help of our Industry Insiders. These vary from year to year and can include the recording industry, management, music education and outreach, audience development and more.

Photo by Marshall Light

Steve Long (UK)

Steve Long has worked in the classical music recording business for over thirty five years in labels, production, recording, broadcast and web. Floating Earth formed in 1987 and Signum Records launched in 1997 as well as various consulting roles fill almost every waking hour. An amateur musician with a degree in economics, turning a hobby into a profession was a dream come true.