Violinist María Dueñas And More DG Artists Win At The 2025 Gramophone Classical Music Awards
The ceremony saw four prestigious awards given to Deutsche Grammophon artists and recordings.
On October 16th, the 2025 Gramophone Classical Music Awards ceremony took place at the De Vere Connaught Rooms in central London. This year, four of the prestigious awards were presented to Deutsche Grammophon artists and recordings, including two wins for violinist María Dueñas.
The Gramophone Awards annually celebrate the finest recordings of the previous twelve months, recognizing the achievements of artists, ensembles and labels. María Dueñas, the 22-year-old Spanish violinist and composer, took home two major awards. Not only did her second DG album Paganini: 24 Caprices win the Instrumental Award, she was also named Young Artist of the Year.
Gramophone assessed Dueñas’s readings of Paganini as “dazzling,” going on to praise her “luminously radiant and golden-toned, fluidly quicksilver technique.” Dueñas also treated the ceremony to a performance from that album and stated in her acceptance speech: “it’s a great pleasure and honor… thank you for believing in the power of youth and curiosity in the arts, thank you so much for this recognition.”
The Chamber Award (sponsored by Wigmore Hall) went to the album featuring Brahms’s Piano Quartets Nos. 2 and 3 made by pianist and DG artist Krystian Zimerman with violinist Maria Nowak, violist Katarzyna Budnik, and cellist Yuya Okamoto. “My warmest thanks to Gramophone for this recognition,” Zimerman said, “to Deutsche Grammophon for their faith and patience, and to our audience – for listening, with open hearts.”
Conductor Joana Mallwitz and the Berlin Konzerthausorchester, meanwhile, took home the Orchestral Recording of the Year Award for The Kurt Weill Album. Featuring the Berlin composer’s two symphonies as well as the “sung ballet” Die sieben Todsünden, this is the debut DG album from Mallwitz, recently named OPUS KLASSIK’s Conductor of the Year 2025.
“On behalf of the musicians of the Konzerthausorchester and all those who have contributed to this CD – on and behind the stage – I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for this award,” said Mallwitz. “It honors us very much and we are very happy about it, also because it helps to bring Kurt Weill’s great works back into focus.”
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