The nominations for the 2019 AIR Awards’ Best Independent Classical Album have been announced, with the Australian Chamber Orchestra picking up two nods. Celebrating Australia’s finest independent recordings, the Australian Independent Record Labels Association has included a classical category in its annual awards for the past seven years.

The ACO has been nominated for Heroines, a live recording of its national tour last year with soprano Nicole Car. The album sees the soprano performing concert and operatic arias by Mozart, Beethoven and Verdi, while the orchestra performs Mozart’s Symphony No 27, Beethoven’s Romance in F and selections from Handel’s Alcina.

The ACO’s regional touring and education ensemble, the ACO Collective, has meanwhile been nominated for its Collective Wisdom. The result of a Hush Foundation initiative, it saw six emerging and six established composers write music inspired by their time with young people with chronic illness and mental health challenges in hospitals across Australia. The ACO’s pairing of Jonny Greenwood’s Water and Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik on its 2017 album, Water/Night Music, won the orchestra the Best Independent Classical Album last year.

The Grigoryan Brothers are nominees once again after...