Rachel Podger wins BBC Music Magazine’s Instrumental Award & Recording of the Year 2023 for ‘Tutta Sola’

We are thrilled to hear that Rachel Podger has won two incredible awards at the BBC Music Magazine Awards 2023 for her album Tutta Sola. This album was released in October 2022 and was recorded, edited and mastered by our very own Jared Sacks. Congratulations to Rachel and everyone else involved in this amazing accomplishment.

In a ceremony at Kings Place on 19 April, Rachel Podger won both the BBC Music Magazine 2023 Recording of the Year Award and the Instrumental Award for her acclaimed solo recital album, Tutta Sola, on Channel Classics. These awards are particularly special since one was voted for by the public from BBC Music Magazine’s shortlist of three recordings, and the other by respected peers – news of these wins following shortly after Rachel’s recital tour of the album across the UK and USA.

Julian Haylock’s five-star review of Tutta Sola for BBC Music Magazine noted:

the most striking aspects of Podger’s playing throughout this recital (compared to most 20th-century ‘golden-agers’), is her enhanced range of tone and articulation, her vastly more flexible use of dynamics and phrasing and her temporal suppleness… Podger plays every piece with an explorative sense of excited discovery, playfully pointing up the various correspondences with Bach’s matchless works.

At the ceremony in Kings Place, Charlotte Smith, the editor of BBC Music Magazine, says:

Tutta Sola presents a fascinating snapshot of rarely performed violin repertoire. The product of intense research and collaboration, the album places Bach in much-needed context, recognising the great skill and innovation of his forebears and contemporaries.

Tutta Sola features a programme of selected solo violin pieces, preludes, dances and fugal movements from the 17th and 18th centuries. The album starts with the world premiere recording of J.S. Bach’s famous organ Toccata and Fugue in a specially commissioned arrangement written by Chad Kelly for solo violin in A minor.

During the recording sessions of ‘Tutta Sola” it happened to me multiple times that my dear producer Jonathan Freeman-Attwood or recording engineer Jared Sacks of Channel Classics would suddenly say something over the speaker, and I would be slightly shocked – “Oh right! You are here too!” – from having been in such deep concentration. I felt so close to the composers. There’s nothing quite like it, and it’s a privilege. I would like to thank all who voted for Tutta Sola, and the teams at BBC Music Magazine, Channel Classics (especially Jared Sacks and Jonathan Freeman-Attwood), and Outhere Music for their kindness and support.”

Rachel Podger

Rachel’s solo album, Guardian Angel, won the BBC Music Magazine Instrumental Award in 2014, and her recording of Vivaldi L’Estro Armonico Concertos won the Concerto Award in 2016 – she is particularly delighted that Tutta Sola joins the list of winners.

Click the button below to view all of Rachel Podger’s albums.