The call for applications for the International “Pure Sound” Award 2021 is closed

The acceptance of applications for participation in the International “Pure Sound” Award 2021 for the best audio recording of works of Russian academic music has been completed.

The “Pure Sound” Award was founded by Russian Musical Union in 2018. The project partners are the National Found for Copyright Holders’ Support, the Orpheus radio station, the “Radio Rossii” radio station, the International Music Council (IMC), the European Music Council (EMC), the CineLab studio complex, the Kulturomania information portal, the InterMedia news agency, “Novy Vek” Bank.

The award is presented every two years in several nominations. The goals of the project are to popularize the Russian school of composition, support the recording industry and develop Russian musical culture in general. The award is also aimed at supporting composers, performers, sound engineers, music publishers working on the release of audio recordings of Russian academic music.

Despite all the difficulties of the past year, the creative activity of the release creators turned out to be very high: over 150 applications from domestic and foreign copyright holders were submitted to the competition. The long list includes 132 releases that meet all the requirements for participants in the award. Among them are recordings of works by both famous Russian composers and young contemporary authors.

The first round of voting is currently underway. The jury of the qualifying stage of the award, chaired by musicologist and program director of radio Orpheus Roman Berchenko, included sound engineers Pavel Lavrenenkov, Tamara Bril, Gennady Papin, Mikhail Spassky, music critics Vladimir Dudin and Ilya Ovchinnikov, as well as the host of the music programs of “Radio Rossii” Lyudmila Osipova.

Honored Artist of the Russian Federation, Head of the recording department of the Moscow Philharmonic, Pavel Lavrenenkov believes that the competition in the field of sound recording of academic music is invaluable: “Such a project was sorely lacking. If sound engineers, musicians and other artists could only dream and guess about the creation of such an award, then the organizers made all their dreams come true. Nowadays there are many contests of pop and jazz music, but not classical. Therefore, the classical music recording competition is very important.”

The renowned sound engineer was pleased with the way the first award was held: “It is worth noting the high level of organization, which, of course, contributes to the future of the competition. The first experience is the most difficult; no one knows anything – what will be the reaction of the professional community and the public. After the first award event, there was no doubt that this is a serious and long story. Even now my colleagues in the competition and I receive numerous calls over the phone: everyone wants to know more about it.”

In early July 2021, the shortlist of the award will be published, and the jury of the final stage, chaired by the composer, Honored Artist of the Russian Federation, Artistic Director of the Moscow Philharmonic, Alexander Tchaikovsky, will start its work.

The award ceremony will be held on September 3, 2021, in the hall of the theater “School of Contemporary Play”.

Detailed information about the event can be found at sound-pure.com .