In October 2005, the Wigmore Hall

Wigmore Hall

Wigmore Hall is a leading international recital venue that specialises in hosting performances of chamber music and is best known for classical recitals of piano, song and instrumental music. It is located at 36 Wigmore Street, London, UK and was built to provide London with a venue that was both...

, London, UK, became the first concert hall to launch its own record label: Wigmore Hall Live, building upon the venue's existing reputation as a recital hall established early in the 20th century. One of the aims was to bring the musical programme to a wider audience. In the 2011 Gramophone Awards, Wigmore Hall Live won the special award: Label of the Year.

Before launching the label, state-of-the-art recording equipment and comprehensive sound insulation had to be installed. These improvements led to the Soile Isokoski

Soile Isokoski

Soile Isokoski is a Finnish lyric soprano. She is an opera singer as well as a concert and lieder singer.- Career :Isokoski was born in Posio...

 disc (recorded live in 2006) receiving a Gramophone Award

Gramophone Award

The Gramophone Awards are one of the most significant honours bestowed on recordings in the classical record industry, often referred to as the Oscars for classical music. The winners are selected annually by critics for the Gramophone magazine and various members of the industry, including...

 nomination.

Since 2005, the label has gone on to release discs featuring artists such as Dame Felicity Lott

Felicity Lott

Dame Felicity Ann Emwhyla Lott, DBE, FRCM is an English soprano.-Education:From her earliest years she was musical, having started studying piano at age 5. She also played violin and began singing lessons at 12. She is an alumna of Royal Holloway, University of London, obtaining a BA in French and...

, Imogen Cooper

Imogen Cooper

Imogen Cooper, CBE is an English pianist.Born in London, she is the daughter of the musicologist Martin Cooper. She studied piano in London with Kathleen Long, in Paris with Jacques Février and Yvonne Lefébure, and in Vienna with Alfred Brendel, Jörg Demus and Paul Badura-Skoda...

, Christine Brewer

Christine Brewer

Christine Brewer is an American soprano. She grew up in the Mississippi River town of Grand Tower, Illinois. She attended McKendree University in Lebanon, Illinois and concentrated on music education. She was a music teacher for several years before embarking on a professional music performing...

, Trevor Pinnock

Trevor Pinnock

Trevor David Pinnock CBE is an English conductor, harpsichordist, and occasional organist and pianist.He is best known for his association with the period-performance orchestra The English Concert which he helped found and directed from the keyboard for over 30 years in baroque and early classical...

, Jonathan Biss

Jonathan Biss

Jonathan Biss is an American classical pianist.Biss represents the third generation in a family of professional musicians, which includes his grandmother Raya Garbousova , as well as his parents, the Israeli-born violinist Miriam Fried and the violist Paul Biss...

, the Gould Piano Trio, the Doric, Arditti

Arditti Quartet

The Arditti Quartet is a string quartet founded in 1974. The quartet is associated particularly with contemporary music.-Early history:The quartet was founded in 1974 by violinist Irvine Arditti together with John Senter, Levine Andrade and Lenox Mackenzie...

 and Kopelman

Kopelman Quartet

The Kopelman Quartet is a Russian string quartet founded in 2002 by Mikhail Kopelman , Boris Kuschnir , Igor Sulyga and Mikhail Milman .- External links :*...

 string quartets, the Nash Ensemble

Nash Ensemble

The Nash Ensemble of London is an acclaimed English chamber ensemble. It was founded by Artistic Director Amelia Freedman in 1964, while she was a student at the Royal Academy of Music, and was named after the Nash Terraces around the Academy...

, the Academy of Ancient Music

Academy of Ancient Music

The Academy of Ancient Music is a period-instrument orchestra based in Cambridge, England. Founded by harpsichordist Christopher Hogwood in 1973, it was named after a previous organisation of the same name of the 18th century. The musicians play on either original instruments or modern copies of...

 and the Early Opera Company

Early Opera Company

The Early Opera Company is a British ensemble dedicated to the performance of baroque operas using period instruments. It was founded in 1994, by Christian Curnyn...

. Gramophone Award nominations have been linked to Wigmore Hall Live recordings by the late Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson, and Roger Vignoles

Roger Vignoles

Roger Vignoles is a British pianist and accompanist. He regularly performs with the world’s leading singers – including Kiri Te Kanawa, Thomas Allen, Anne Sofie von Otter, Thomas Hampson, Gitta-Maria Sjøberg, Sarah Walker, Susan Graham, Felicity Lott, Stephan Genz, Monica Groop, Wolfgang Holzmair,...

, Soile Isokoski

Soile Isokoski

Soile Isokoski is a Finnish lyric soprano. She is an opera singer as well as a concert and lieder singer.- Career :Isokoski was born in Posio...

 and Marita Viitasalo, Peter Schreier

Peter Schreier

Peter Schreier is a German tenor and conductor.-Early life:Schreier was born in Meissen, Saxony, and spent his first years in the small village of Gauernitz, near Meissen, where his father was a teacher, cantor and organist...

 and Andras Schiff

András Schiff

András Schiff is a Hungarian-born British classical pianist, who has won a number of awards including the Grammy and made numerous recordings.- Biography :...

, and Gerald Finley

Gerald Finley

-Career:He was born in Montreal and received his musical education in St. Matthew's Anglican Church, Ottawa, the University of Ottawa, King's College, Cambridge and the Royal College of Music in London, England...

 and Julius Drake

Julius Drake

Julius Drake is an English pianist who works as a song recital accompanist and chamber musician.-Biography:Drake was educated at the Purcell School and the Royal College of Music; he made his professional debut at the Purcell Room in 1981 and developed a special affinity for the music of Robert...

. The Elias String Quartet CD of Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn

Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...

, Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

 and Schubert

Franz Schubert

Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...

 won a Newcomer Award in the BBC Music Magazine

BBC music magazine

BBC Music Magazine is a magazine published monthly in the United Kingdom by BBC Worldwide, the commercial subsidiary of the BBC. Reflecting the broadcast output of BBC Radio 3, the magazine is devoted primarily to classical music, though with sections on jazz and world music. Each edition comes...

 Awards 2010. Wigmore Hall Live discs have been reviewed in The Times

The Times

The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

 and The Guardian

The Guardian

The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

, as well as on BBC radio

BBC Radio

BBC Radio is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927. For a history of BBC radio prior to 1927 see British Broadcasting Company...

.