The Irish composer Gerald Barry has recieved the 2013 Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award for Large-Scale Composition. The prize, awarded for the composer’s The Importance of Being Earnest, was presented by Dame Janet Baker at an event at the Dorchester Hotel, London, on Tuesday, 14 May.

Barry’s work was selected from a shortlist of three, which also included Harrison Birtwistle’s In Broken Images and Julian Anderson’s The Discovery of Heaven. The award is for a large-scale work receiving its first UK performance in 2012. The Chamber-Scale Composition award went to Rebecca Saunders for Fletch.

Among a total of thirteen categories to the RPS Music Awards, other prizewinners included the PRS for Music Foundation (Concert Series and Festivals), the Britten Sinfonia (Ensemble), Steven Osborne (Instrumentalist), Birmingham Opera Company (Opera and Music Theatre) and the Heath Quartet (Young Artists). Honorary membership of the RPS was also bestowed on Armand Diangienda, Ahmad Sarmast, Rosemary Nalden, Ricardo Castro and Aaron P. Dworkin.

Barry’s work, based on the play by Oscar Wilde, will be staged in full for the first time this summer, with a production directed by Ramin Gray at the Royal Opera House, London, from 14 to 22 June. At present, all shows appear to be booked out.

The RPS Music Awards were founded in 1989 to ‘celebrate the outstanding musical achievements of both young and established, British and international, musicians’. Awards are decided by a jury from within the music profession. BBC Radio 3 will broadcast an RPS Music Awards programme on Sunday, 19 May, at 2pm.

rpsmusicawards.com