Page 65 - Final_RPS Awards 2020 Media Coverage Book

Colin’s Column

19 November 2020
2020 RPS Awards – Winners Announced.

• Composer John Williams wins coveted Gold Medal for introducing millions to orchestral
music

• Steven Spielberg presents a special congratulatory message to his long-time
collaborator
• Chairman John Gilhooly gives major speech on classical music and the pandemic

• New Inspiration Award presented to six of the hundreds of initiatives that have uplifted
the nation during lockdown

• Cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason wins Young Artists Award
• Conductor Jane Glover wins Gamechanger Award
• Awards broadcast presented online for the first time at royalphilharmonicsociety.org.uk

• BBC Radio 3 presents a musical celebration of the winners at 7.30pm on Monday 23
November

A prominent advocate for music this year, RPS Chairman John Gilhooly opened proceedings
with a major speech: ‘Tonight we come together, in a year when our musical world has been
largely immobilised, and, for a while, totally silenced. This could easily be an eighteen month or
longer crisis for live performance. We need our leaders to maintain an ongoing honest and open
dialogue with our industry. We need a faster solution for getting aid to the self-employed. We
need to be clear about the scale of what will be lost. We need to draw on every resource we can
to heal and rebuild our society, and cannot allow music to be neglected or overlooked in this. As
we continue on the uncertain road ahead, we draw on our inner strength, our resilience, and our
solidarity as a community of musicians and music lovers; as a Philharmonic Community.’