Music Producers Guild Announces its 2016 Award Winners!

Female recording professionals make a big impact on this year’s awards with five of the main honours going to women.

Producer Charlie Andrew received the top award at last night’s annual Music Producers Guild Awards ceremony, which took place at the prestigious Grosvenor House, Park Lane, London.

Andrew, who received the MPG Award for Breakthrough Producer in 2013, was nominated for this year’s Producer of the Year Award for his work with Alt-J, Marika Hackman and Sivu. Winning this honour meant that he automatically received the 2016 BRIT Award for Best Producer, which was presented at the same time.

This year’s MPG Awards also saw a significant increase in the number of female recording professionals carrying off gongs. Olga Fitzroy and Catherine Marks won the awards for Recording Engineer of the Year, sponsored by AMS Neve and Breakthrough Producer of the Year, sponsored by Focusrite, respectively. While FKA twigs won the Awards for UK Single (Pendulum) and UK Album (LP1) of the Year, both of which she co-produced. There was also an MPG Inspiration Award sponsored by Universal Audio, for Sylvia Massy, whose hugely successful career in the recording industry has embraced many roles including producer, engineer, mixer, writer, artist and educator.

Now well established as an annual music industry event, the MPG Awards 2016, in association with Prism Sound, also honoured producer and artist Youth (Martin Glover) with the MPG’s Outstanding Contribution to UK Music Award, sponsored by PPL. Youth, who is one of the founding members of Killing Joke, later took to the stage to entertain guests with a live performance featuring a number of the artists he has produced over the years including Killing Joke, Alex Paterson from The Orb and The Verve’s Richard Ashcroft.

Introduced in 2009 to recognise the enormous contribution made by recording professionals to the success of the UK’s music industry, the MPG Awards regularly attracts a high turnout of music industry VIPs and celebrities. This year was no exception with over 350 people attending the event, which moved to Grosvenor House to accommodate increasing demand for tickets.

Tony Platt, MPG Awards Director, says: “The diversity of talent winning MPG Awards this year is truly outstanding and we are proud to be reflecting the ever rising number of women in the top tier of music making. It was yet another all-round great night for the UK music business.”

The 2016 MPG Awards saw a total of 16 Awards presented. These included the MPG Award for Innovation sponsored by Audio Note, which was won by Geoff Emerick who engineered all but a few of the Beatles‘ recordings between 1966 and 1968. There was also a Special Recognition Award for former PPL chairman Fran Nevrkla in honour of the sterling work he has done over the years to promote the financial interests of recording professionals.

For a full list of 2016 MPG Award winners and sponsors, please see the list below. For more information, photos and video clips, please click on the links in the sidebar.

UK Producer of the Year, sponsored by The BRITS 2016

Charlie Andrew

Outstanding Contribution to UK Music, sponsored by PPL

Youth (Martin Glover)

Recording Engineer of the Year, sponsored by AMS Neve

Olga Fitzroy

Mix Engineer of the Year, sponsored by Solid State Logic

David Wrench

Mastering Engineer of the Year, sponsored by SADiE and Transco Blanx

John Davis

UK Album of the Year, sponsored by G-tech and Jigsaw24

FKA twigs – LP1 

UK Single Song Release of the Year, sponsored by Shure

FKA twigs – Pendulum

Re-mixer of the Year, sponsored by Prism Sound

UNKLE

Breakthrough Producer of the Year, sponsored by Focusrite

Catherine Marks

Breakthrough Engineer of the Year, sponsored by Musicguard Insurance

Brett Cox

International Producer of the Year, sponsored by Pro Tools Expert

Max Martin

Studio of the Year, sponsored by Avid

Air Studios

The A&R Award, sponsored by Blue Box Studios

Chris Briggs

The MPG Award for Innovation, sponsored by Audio Note

Geoff Emerick

The MPG Award for Inspiration, sponsored by Universal Audio

Sylvia Massy

The Special Recognition Award

Fran Nevrkla