©Mark Allen
©Mark Allen

Víkingur Ólafsson receives ​“Recording of the Year” & ​“Instrumental” awards at BBC Music Magazine Awards

11/4/2019

“For Bach playing of a higher order, there is only one place to go: the recent album by Víkingur Ólafsson.”

(THE TIMES 5* REVIEW, NOVEMBER 2018)

On the evening of Wednesday, 10 April the winners of the annual BBC Music Magazine Awards were announced. Víkingur Ólafsson received the prestigious ​“Recording of the Year” award as well as the ​“Instrumental” award for his album Johann Sebastian Bach (Deutsche Grammophon). The album was released in September 2018 and is his second album on the label. Since then, it has received astounding reviews from publications all around the world. The two BBC Music Magazine Awards are Víkingur’s first international awards, after having won all the major prizes in his native country, Iceland.

Víkingur Ólafsson says: ​“I am very touched to win this important award for my Bach album and to know that people enjoy listening to it. Playing and recording Bach is in many ways the most personal thing one can do in music, and I am very grateful for the incredibly kind and generous reactions.”

Photo credit: Edouard Brane and Mark Allen

“Ólafsson’s​inspired playing makes Bach more human than we’ve heard in a long time”

(SUDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG, DECEMBER 2018)

“There’s a quiet fearlessness to this album … Mr. Olafsson is a master of finding and exploiting unexpected pockets of musicality.”

(NEW YORK TIMES, DECEMBER 2018)
BBC Music Magazine Awards website