The first Visions of Sound Awards were presented at the High End trade fair in Munich lst weekend. The award was given to the most outstanding immersive music mixes released on Blu-ray with Dolby Atmos in 2023.
Kneeling in front are David Merkl and Hans-Martin Buff. (Photo: Dolby Germany)
These are this year's winners:
Steven Wilson received the award in the category “Album New Release Progressive Rock/Pop” for his brilliant mix of the album “The Harmony Codex”. In addition, he was honored for mixing the live concert “Closure/Continuation.Live.Amsterdam 07/11/22” with his band Porcupine Tree and received the title “Engineer of the Year”.
Eric Horstmann was recognized for his immersive mix of the album “Feathers & Bones” by Rodriguez Jr. in the electronic music category and also received the audience award through an online vote in collaboration with the YouTube channel Grobi TV.
Morten Lindberg, a renowned sound engineer within multi-channel sound fields, won in the categories classical choral music for the mix of Cantus & Tove Ramlo-Ystad’s “Yggdrasil” and the award for the best mix in the genre of classical orchestral music for Henning Sommerro’s “BORDERS”, interpreted by the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra.
Chris James received the award for the best immersive mix of a re-release in the progressive rock/pop music category for “Diamond & Pearls” by Prince & The New Power Generation.
Hans-Martin Buff was awarded the prize in the Rock/Pop New Release category for his outstanding work on the immersive mix of Peter Gabriel’s release “I/O”.
Kseniya Kawko received the award for the immersive mix of the album “Jean-Paul Liardet: The Piano Sonatas” by pianist Olga Riazantceva-Schwarz in the Classical Music Solo Instrument category.
Stefan Bock and David Merkl were honored for their innovative work on the immersive mix of Martin Kälberer’s album “Raum” in the cross-genre category “Crossover”.
Additionally, the home cinema retailer Grobi.TV was named Retailer of the Year.
Christoph Diekmann, the initiator of the awards, emphasized the importance of these awards in recognizing outstanding sound experiences and raising awareness of immersive audio on Blu-ray. He was delighted that so many award winners took part in the event and emphasized the continuous development of this format. The next awards are planned for 2025, and Diekmann hopes that the release of albums in this impressive sound experience format will continue to flourish.
Further information about the awards and all nominated titles can be found at visions-of-sound.live/award.
