The A&R Awards in association with Abbey Road Studios return to London on the evening of Wednesday, November 1 – and today we can reveal who’ll be battling it out to win one of the UK-focused ceremony’s coveted trophies.
A wide range of individual and team awards will be handed out on the night to those working in both independent and major sectors across record labels, publishing and management – as well as standout artistic talent.
The ‘Breaking Artist’ Award will recognise an emerging British (or British-signed) artist – either on their first album or pre-their first album – who shows real promise for a sustainable future career.
The Songwriter Of The Year and Producer Of The Year awards will recognise the finest behind-the-scenes UK musical creatives, voted on by a worldwide panel of expert and experienced A&R figures.
Then we get to the individual A&R awards – also counting A&R duos – which are once again segmented by genre.
To be clear: the nominees and winners of these categories have done great things within these genres over the past year, but are certainly not exclusively defined by them.
The categories are: Adult Contemporary, Electronic/Dance, Hip-Hop/Grime, Rock/Alternative and Pop/R&B.
In addition, an A&R Administrator Award will be collected by an individual without whom a record company simply couldn’t operate.
And then there are the team awards.
These will include two Publisher Of The Year gongs (for UK pubs above and below a certain size threshold), Major Label Of The Year, Independent Label Of The Year and Management Company of The Year (The David Enthoven Award).
All of these categories will be voted on by a select cast of global music business experts in the coming weeks.
In addition, three very special awards will be handed out on the night: The Sir George Martin Award, The A&R Loyalty Award and The A&R Icon Award.
Presented by MBW, The A&R Awards 2017 take place at the Sheraton Grand Park Lane in Mayfair.
Platinum tables are now on the verge of selling out, but some Gold tables are still available.
[To be clear: This award considers ‘breaking’ acts only. Any act with a Silver-selling UK album (60k+) or a Gold-selling UK single as a lead artist (300k+) is considered exempt.]
Producer Of The Year – Supported by Abbey Road Studios
