Nightingale Award (»Nachtigall«) & Honorary Awards 2025
02.12.2024 – Today, the German Record Critics’ Award announces its three Honorary Awards and the Nightingale of the Year Award (»Nachtigall«) for 2025. The jurors of the PdSK e.V. award honorary prizes to personalities from the music world who have set new standards in their respective fields, representing the recorded medium as a cultural asset.
The PdSK awards the Nachtigall (Nightingale) – a bronze sculpture created by the artist Daniel Richter – to honour outstanding artists who have made a lasting impact on our musical life, changing it for the better. Past Nightingale award winners include Nina Hagen, Murray Perahia, Leonard Cohen, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Christian Gerhaher, Brigitte Fassbaender, the RIAS Chamber Choir and jazz pianist Irène Schweizer.
This year’s awards go to: the founder of a contemporary jazz institution, Patrik Landolt, for his enthusiasm for music without stylistic boundaries and for freedom of aesthetics; Wolfgang Niedecken, an authentic ambassador of his hometown of Cologne and its musical language, for his social commitment, which is inextricably linked to his musical work; the Swiss singer-songwriter Sophie Hunger, for her economical urgency, hypnotic and compelling. The PdSK honours the violinist Sigiswald Kuijken as the Nightingale winner for revolutionising our appreciation of early music and exploring period instruments and performance techniques with fearless virtuosity.
The awards will be presented at a ceremony attended by the public. The PdSK will announce the time and location in due course.
Here are the reasons given by the annual committee:
Honorary Awards
Nightingale Award
The following critics/jurors worked in the annual committee: Laura Aha, Tim Caspar Boehme (both Jury Club and Dance), Ralf Dombrowski (Jury Pop), Julia Kaiser (Jury Lieder and Vocal Recital), Kai Luehrs-Kaiser (Jury Opera I), Carsten Niemann (Jury Early Music), Sabrina Palm (Jury Folk and Singer/Songwriter), Petra Rieß (Jury R&B, Soul and HipHop) and Albrecht Thiemann (Jury Lieder and Vocal Recital)