Michael Ronan wins 2024 Prince’s Prize

Northumbrian bass-baritone Michael Ronan has been revealed as the winner of the Musicians’ Company Prince’s Prize 2024, following a special celebratory concert held at the Music Hall in London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Ronan receives an award of £5,000, plus a silver medal after being judged ‘the most promising young instrumentalist or singer from the Worshipful Company of Musician’s award winners’ this year by a panel of adjudicators including conductor Alice Farnham, baritone Donald Maxwell and pianist Lucy Parham. The Audience Prize was awarded to accompanist Zany Denyer.

The Prince’s Prize was established to mark the installation of the former Prince of Wales as an Honorary Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Musicians on 21 November 2003. Ronan adds this latest prize to a long list of previous accolades including Glyndebourne’s 2023 John Christie Award, the Royal Academy of Music’s 2022 Bicentenary Prize, the Joan Chissell Schumann Lieder Prize, the Sir Thomas Armstrong English Song Prize, and the Blyth-Buesst Opera Prize.

As well as his recent season as a Jerwood Young Artist at Glyndebourne, Ronan has also participated in the Royal Academy Opera, on productions including Le nozze di Figaro, The Rakes Progress, Così fan tutte and Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He has also performed with Ensemble OrQuesta and at Berlin’s OPERNFEST.