Innovation Award

Harriet Cunningham is a writer based in Sydney, Australia. In print, she is best known as music and theatre critic for the Sydney Morning Herald, and she is content and brand specialist for Musica Viva Australia. 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.

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.

Dimitrios Kiousopoulos is a music critic and journalist based in Athens, Greece. He is a member of the Union of Greek Critics for Drama and Music, Editor-in-Chief of classicalmusic.gr, and a correspondent for L’Opera – International Magazine (Italy). Since 2013, he has been publishing reviews, interviews, and articles on classical music and opera for several print and digital media in Greece, covering concerts, performances, and music festivals throughout Greece and Europe. In addition to Greek, he speaks English, French, Italian, Spanish, and German. He also works as a translator and is a freelance editor for andro.gr

Gianluigi Mattietti, former professor in composition at the Conservatory of Cagliari, is now Professor of Musicology at the University there. He has published monographs and essays on analytical and theoretical aspects of 20th- and 21st-century music and on composers such as Aldo Clementi, Ivan Fedele, Toshio Hosokawa, Francesco Filidei and Stefan Prins. As an expert in contemporary music theatre, he has edited the updated edition of the Dizionario dell’Opera and recently collaborated on Treccani’s Enciclopedia of Contemporary Music. In addition to his research activities, he is also a music critic, collaborating with the magazines Music Paper, Il Corriere musicale and Classic Voice. He is vice-president of the ANCM (National Association of Music Critics).

Máté is a cultural journalist based in Budapest. His career began as classical music editor at Fidelio.hu, followed by freelance work for all major cultural outlets in Hungary. As a critic, his focus is on discovering new and original talents; as a journalist, public education is a core concern. Since 2022, a staff writer at Magyar Narancs, also covering foreign affairs and cultural policy. In 2019, he was a recipient of the Junior Prima Award for talents under 30. Find out more.

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 is a musicologist, classical music journalist and PR manager. Her interviews and articles have appeared in magazines such as Ritmo, Audioclásica, Pro Ópera and La Scena Musicale. Also, Lorena hosts a series of exclusive interviews with world-class artists at the Granada Festival. She has a degree in Musicology from the University of Oviedo and a Master’s in Arts Administration from the University of Dresden.

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.

Monika Pasiecznik is a music critic, researcher and curator working with Polish and international music media and festivals. Author of several books and hundreds of articles on classical, new and experimental music. Juror of international composition competitions, academic lecturer. Curator of experimental music projects. She lives in Warsaw. Read more of her work on her website.

Rasa Murauskaitė-Juškienė is a music critic and cultural journalist who currently works as a senior editor at LRT KLASIKA radio. She is also a PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge. Rasa has published over 400 articles on music and culture, produces radio programmes focusing on contemporary Lithuanian and Baltic music, and works as a producer on various radio projects, both nationally and internationally.

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.

An industry veteran with over 30 years experience in the classical music recording business, Steve Long works in recording, production and label management.

Hannah Schmidt writes and produces as a freelance music journalist for ZEIT, WDR, SWR, BR Klassik, Deutschlandfunk, VAN magazine and an.schläge, among others. In 2023, she was awarded the Reinhard Schulz Prize for contemporary music criticism for her work.

Award-winning music critic Rudolph Tang, based in Shanghai, has been described by The New York Times as a “writer and expert on the classical music industry in China.” Throughout his career, Rudolph has dedicated himself to music journalism and criticism. His extensive press trips have taken him to over 100 destinations across more than 35 countries, covering premieres, festivals, and competitions. As one of the most quoted and widely published critics of his generation, Rudolph contributes in English to Musical America, Interlude.hk, VAN, das Orchester, Operawire, and Symphony. In 2024, he was honoured with the Pioneering Critic Award by Music Lover magazine.

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 Strad, and writes widely across numerous other publications.