Renowned Greek violinist Leonidas Kavakos won on the special Artist of the Year accolade at this year’s Gramophone Classical Music Awards, held at St. Johns Smith Square, London, on September 17.

Receiving his award by trumpeter Alison Balsom, the 46-year-old musician said that he is deeply moved. He also said that, in his opinion, “there is no way to success for anyone by himself,” and thanked those people who have been close to him and all the people he “has had the privilege to make music with.”

It should be noted that this Award was introduced in 2010 and is the only Gramophone Award to be decided by public vote internationally. The Previous winners of this prestigious award are Alison Balsom, Joseph Calleja, Gustavo Dudamel and Joyce DiDonato.

In citation for his nomination for the prize, Gramophone Magazine praised both Kavakos’s recording and performing work: “Kavakos has had quite a year, performing on many of the world’s great stages and with the greatest orchestras to universal acclaim. He recorded Brahms’s Violin Concerto with Chailly and the Gewandhaus Orchestra for Decca (‘evidence of abundant temperament and passion’ according to Duncan Druce last December) and made a superb set, with Yuja Wang at the piano, of the Brahms sonatas – an Editor’s Choice this month. Increasingly seen with a baton in hand, Kavakos has come a long way since taking Gramophone’s Concerto Award back in 1991 for the Sibelius Violin Concerto in its original version for BIS.”