The annual Music Producers Guild Awards ceremony, saw Producer Charlie Andrew received the top award. Having received the MPG Award for Breakthrough Producer in 2013, he 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.

Held at London’s Grosvenor House, Park Lane, the 2016 MPG Awards also saw a significant increase in the number of female recording professionals recognised. 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 for ‘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 career in the recording industry has embraced many roles including producer, engineer, mixer, writer, artist and educator.

Now 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.

‘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,’ says MPG Awards Director, Tony Platt.

A total of 16 Awards were presented, including 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.

More: www.mpg.org.uk