ABC Classics is the classical music

Classical music

Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...

 record label

Record label

In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...

 within the Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...

. It is internationally recognised as Australia's premier classical music label, with a catalogue of more than 500 titles. Based in the Sydney, ABC Classics was founded in 1987

1987 in music

This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1987.See also:Record labels established in 1987-January-February:*January 3 – Aretha Franklin becomes the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame...

 as a means of showcasing the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's classical music recordings under its own banner.

Artists

ABC Classics has worked with some of Australia's greatest musicians. As well as all the major Australian symphony orchestras, their artists include Yvonne Kenny

Yvonne Kenny

Yvonne Kenny AM is an Australian soprano, particularly associated with Handel and Mozart roles.Born in Sydney, she first studied at the University of Sydney in science, hoping to become a biochemist, but decided to pursue a career in music instead...

, Geoffrey Lancaster

Geoffrey Lancaster

Geoffrey Lancaster AM is an Australian classical pianist and conductor. Born in Sydney, he was raised in Dubbo, New South Wales before moving to Canberra. He attended the Canberra School of Music where he studied piano with Larry Sitsky...

, Richard Tognetti

Richard Tognetti

Richard Leo Tognetti, AO is an Australian violinist, composer and conductor. He is currently Artistic Director and Leader of the Australian Chamber Orchestra and Artistic Director of the Maribor Festival in Maribor, Slovenia....

, Sara Macliver

Sara Macliver

Sara Macliver is an Australian soprano singer, born and raised in Perth, Western Australia.Sara is one of Australia’s most popular and versatile artists, appearing in operas, concert and recital performances and on numerous recordings...

, Teddy Tahu Rhodes

Teddy Tahu Rhodes

-Early life:Teddy Tahu Rhodes was born in Christchurch, New Zealand, on 30 August 1966, to a British mother and a New Zealand father. The Maori word "Tahu", which means "to set on fire", was added to the family name soon after they settled in New Zealand...

, Slava Grigoryan

Slava Grigoryan

Slava Grigoryan is an Australian classical guitarist and recording artist of Armenian heritage.He was born in Kazakhstan to Eduard and Irina Grigoryan, both professional violinists. His family emigrated to Australia in 1981 and he was raised in Melbourne. Grigoryan began to study guitar with his...

, David Hobson, Karin Schaupp

Karin Schaupp

Karin Schaupp is a German-born Australian classical guitarist and actress.She was born in 1972 in Hofheim am Taunus, Germany, to a musical family. Her mother and principal teacher, Isolde Schaupp, was a teacher of guitar at the Conservatorium of Wiesbaden. Her father was an amateur pianist, and her...

, Diana Doherty

Diana Doherty

Diana Doherty is an Australian oboist, currently Principal Oboe with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.-Life:Diana Doherty was born in Brisbane, where she began her education. She attended Brisbane State High School...

, Roger Woodward

Roger Woodward

Roger Woodward AC OBE is an Australian classical concert pianist.-Biography:Roger Woodward was born in 1942 in Chatswood, a suburb of Sydney, the youngest of four children to Gladys and Frank Woodward...

, Gerard Willems

Gerard Willems

Gerard Willems is a Dutch-born Australian classical pianist and teacher. He was the first Dutch and first Australian pianist to record the complete series of 32 piano sonatas, 5 piano concertos and the Diabelli Variations by Ludwig van Beethoven, and is the only pianist to do so using a...

, Cantillation

Cantillation

Cantillation is the ritual chanting of readings from the Hebrew Bible in synagogue services. The chants are written and notated in accordance with the special signs or marks printed in the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible to complement the letters and vowel points...

, Sydney Children's Choir, Gondwana Voices and Saffire (the Australian Guitar Quartet)

Saffire (music)

Saffire: The Australian Guitar Quartet is an Australian classical music group, consisting of Karin Schaupp, Slava Grigoryan, Gareth Koch, and Leonard Grigoryan Saffire: The Australian Guitar Quartet is an Australian classical music group, consisting of Karin Schaupp, Slava Grigoryan, Gareth Koch,...

.

They have a strong emphasis on Australian compositions, with their Australian Composers Series recorded in conjunction with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra

Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra

The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra is a symphony orchestra based in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. It is the smallest of the six orchestras established by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation .-Activities:...

 being a major milestone in Australian Music.

Accolades

ABC Classics has been awarded the prestigious ARIA Music Award

ARIA Music Awards

The Australian Recording Industry Association Music Awards is an annual series of awards nights celebrating the Australian music industry, put on by the Australian Recording Industry Association...

 for Best Classical Album 19 times since the inception of the awards in 1987. The history of the ARIA Award for Best Classical Album parallels ABC Classics' own history and highlights the label's ongoing commitment to the music of Australia's composers, soloists, chamber ensembles and orchestras.

The list of ABC Classics award winners includes a number of artists who have been honoured more than once, and numerous others who have been nominated as finalists on several occasions. Music by Australian composers features prominently in the list of winners: Peter Sculthorpe

Peter Sculthorpe

Peter Joshua Sculthorpe AO OBE is an Australian composer. Much of his music has resulted from an interest in the music of Australia's neighbours as well as from the impulse to bring together aspects of native Australian music with that of the heritage of the West...

's music has received the award three times, and recordings of music by Richard Meale

Richard Meale

Richard Graham Meale, AM, MBE was an Australian composer of instrumental works and operas.-Biography:Meale was born in Sydney and studied piano with Winifred Burston at the NSW State Conservatorium of Music, as well as clarinet, harp, music history and theory, before studying at the University of...

, Carl Vine

Carl Vine

Carl Vine is an Australian composer of contemporary classical music.-Career:Vine was born in Perth, Western Australia. When he was ten years old, he took up the piano. An adolescent encounter with Karlheinz Stockhausen inspired a period as a teenage modernist, a direction which he abandoned in 1985...

 and Ross Edwards

Ross Edwards

Ross Edwards is a former Western Australian and Australian cricketer.Edwards played in 20 Tests for Australia, playing against England, West Indies and Pakistan. He also played in nine One Day Internationals including the 1975 Cricket World Cup series...

 have also been honoured. Australian orchestras have also dominated the awards, with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra

Sydney Symphony Orchestra

The Sydney Symphony Orchestra , commonly known as the Sydney Symphony, is an Australian symphony orchestra based in Sydney...

 featuring on four award winners. Soprano Yvonne Kenny

Yvonne Kenny

Yvonne Kenny AM is an Australian soprano, particularly associated with Handel and Mozart roles.Born in Sydney, she first studied at the University of Sydney in science, hoping to become a biochemist, but decided to pursue a career in music instead...

 and pianist Gerard Willems

Gerard Willems

Gerard Willems is a Dutch-born Australian classical pianist and teacher. He was the first Dutch and first Australian pianist to record the complete series of 32 piano sonatas, 5 piano concertos and the Diabelli Variations by Ludwig van Beethoven, and is the only pianist to do so using a...

 have both won the award twice, Willems taking out the award in two successive years for his Beethoven Piano Sonatas project.

Current exposure

Lloyds TSB Bank in the UK is currently featuring the ABC Classics track "Eliza Aria" from the CD Wild Swans by Elena Kats-Chernin

Elena Kats-Chernin

Elena Kats-Chernin is an Australian composer.Elena Kats-Chernin was born in Tashkent , and migrated to Australia in 1975.-Europe:...

in their 2007 animated adverts.