London, UK (March 2, 2018)—Music production has long been a male-dominated business but at the UK’s Music Producers Guild Awards on March 1, five women took home some of the top honors, including UK Producer of the Year and Recording Engineer of the Year.
Producer Catherine Marks carried off the top accolade of UK Producer of the Year at the ceremony, which took place last night at Grosvenor House in London on Thursday, March 1. Marks, who previously won the MPG’s Breakthrough Producer of the Year Award in 2016, was nominated this year for her work on The Amazons’ self-titled album, Manchester Orchestra’s album A Black Mile To The Surface and The Big Moon’s Love In The 4th Dimension.
On the Red Carpet: Manon Grandjean with Stormzy. Photo: Jennifer McCord
On the Red Carpet: Langer and Winstanley. Photo: Jennifer McCord
The other female winners were Manon Grandjean, who carried off the Recording Engineer of the Year Award; Marta Salogni, who won Breakthrough Engineer of the Year and Jane Third who won the A&R Award. The artists they have worked with are among the music industry’s most successful and critically acclaimed names and include Stormzy, London Grammar, The xx, Kasabian, Feist, Goldfrapp, Frank Ocean and Slaves.
Now 10 years old and well established as an annual music industry event, the MPG Awards 2018 also honored producer and musician Imogen Heap with the Inspiration Award. Renowned for being inventive, Heap has released four hugely successful solo albums and is also the only female artist to have won a Grammy for engineering. In recent years she has designed and produced musical gloves that combine unique gestural vocabulary, motion data-capture systems and user interfaces allowing her to sculpt and manipulate sound on stage as she performs computer-based digital creations.
The MPG Awards 2018 also saw Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley honored with the PPL sponsored Award for Outstanding Contribution to UK Music. This award recognizes one of the most influential partnerships in music production over the last 40 years. Developing a sound described as “that English pop thing,” Langer and Winstanley have a credit list that reads like a pop hall of fame and includes many classic albums, not least Elvis Costello’s Punch The Clock, Dexys Midnight Runners’ Too-Rye-Ay, Bush’s best-selling album Sixteen Stone and numerous Madness albums.
For a full list of 2018 MPG Award winners and sponsors follows:
UK Producer of the Year: Catherine Marks
MPG Award For Outstanding Contribution To UK Music: Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley
Recording Engineer of the Year: Manon Grandjean
Mix Engineer of the Year: Mark ‘Spike’ Stent
Mastering Engineer of the Year: Matt Colton
UK Album of the Year: Glass Animals – How To Be A Human
UK Single Song Release of the Year: Royal Blood – Lights Out
Re-mixer of the Year: UNKLE
Breakthrough Producer of the Year: Jolyon Thomas
Breakthrough Engineer of the Year: Marta Salogni
International Producer of the Year: Garret ‘Jacknife’ Lee
Self-Producing Artist of the Year: Dave Bayley (Glass Animals)
Studio of the Year: Abbey Road
The A&R Award: Jane Third
The MPG Special Recognition Award: Colin Sanders
The MPG Award For Inspiration: Imogen Heap
Music Producers Guild • www.mpg.org.uk
