Who are the 10 artists, composers and performers most present in the web media in 2020, in the press and blogs combined? Which orchestras and venues have received the most media exposure? And the others, those who also count on the classical music stage, even if they are perhaps less mentioned?
What are the best advances compared to 2019, including perhaps the great talents to come? What are these rising performers, those who are progressing year after year?
Here are those who have made the news in classical music and opera in 2020, the most cited in articles and posts, the most popular in the writings of those who listen and review the new releases, attend performances, interview the performers, make us rediscover a little-known work, retrace a venue's history or share a composer's biography. Behind these rankings are current and future trends.
The 50 most popular alive performers and composers
including artists dead this year (2020)
| # | Artists | 2020 | 2020/19 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Daniel Barenboim |  | = | ||
| 2. | Arvo Pärt |  | + 52 | ||
| 3. | Simon Rattle |  | - 1 | ||
| 4. | Jonas Kaufmann |  | + 7 | ||
| 5. | Thomas Adès |  | + 55 | ||
| 6. | Sheku Kanneh-Mason |  | + 15 | ||
| 7. | Krzysztof Penderecki |  | |||
| 8. | Aaron Dworkin |  | + 44 | ||
| 9. | Yannick Nézet-Séguin |  | + 16 | ||
| 10. | John Eliot Gardiner |  | + 3 | ||
| # | Artists | 2020 | 2020/19 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11. | Christian Tetzlaff |  | + 35 | ||
| James MacMillan |  | + 3 | |||
| Neeme Järvi |  | ||||
| Anna Netrebko |  | + 4 | |||
| Esa-Pekka Salonen |  | - 8 | |||
| James Levine |  | + 42 | |||
| Nicola Benedetti |  | + 6 | |||
| Michael Tilson Thomas |  | + 4 | |||
| Martha Argerich |  | - 14 | |||
| Toby Spence |  | + 69 | |||
| # | Artists | 2020 | 2020/19 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21. | Renée Fleming |  | + 30 | ||
| Gustavo Dudamel |  | - 8 | |||
| Julia Fischer |  | - 13 | |||
| Hilary Hahn |  | + 77 | |||
| Bernard Haitink |  | - 22 | |||
| Valery Gergiev |  | - 9 | |||
| Sean Shibe |  | ||||
| Lise Davidsen |  | - 1 | |||
| Lynn Harrell |  | ||||
| Ermonela Jaho |  | ||||
| # | Artists | 2020 | 2020/19 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31. | Andrew Lloyd Webber |  | |||
| Joyce DiDonato |  | - 6 | |||
| Riccardo Muti |  | + 7 | |||
| Philip Glass |  | + 23 | |||
| Marin Alsop |  | + 7 | |||
| Leon Fleisher |  | ||||
| Itzhak Perlman |  | + 6 | |||
| Cheryl Frances-Hoad |  | ||||
| Maxim Vengerov |  | ||||
| Anthony McGill |  | ||||
| # | Artists | 2020 | 2020/19 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 41. | Harrison Birtwistle |  | + 3 | ||
| Timothy Ridout |  | ||||
| Vladimir Jurowski |  | - 37 | |||
| Antonio Pappano |  | + 6 | |||
| Augustin Hadelich |  | ||||
| Michael Finnissy |  | ||||
| Kirill Gerstein |  | + 18 | |||
| Natalya Romaniw |  | ||||
| Roberto Alagna |  | ||||
| Kirill Petrenko |  | - 31 | |||
Variations are appreciated regarding the previous year.
The 50 most popular composers and performers
For the greatest composers and performers below, major variations can be due to special commemorations (centenaries...). [+]
| # | Artists | 2020 | 2020/19 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Ludwig van Beethoven |  | = | ||
| 2. | Johann Sebastian Bach |  | = | ||
| 3. | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart |  | = | ||
| 4. | George Frideric Handel |  | = | ||
| 5. | Richard Wagner |  | + 4 | ||
| 6. | Gustav Mahler |  | = | ||
| 7. | Franz Schubert |  | + 4 | ||
| 8. | Johannes Brahms |  | + 2 | ||
| 9. | Benjamin Britten |  | - 2 | ||
| 10. | Robert Schumann |  | - 5 | ||
| # | Artists | 2020 | 2020/19 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11. | Joseph Haydn |  | + 2 | ||
| Felix Mendelssohn |  | + 6 | |||
| Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky |  | - 5 | |||
| Giuseppe Verdi |  | - 2 | |||
| Frédéric Chopin |  | + 7 | |||
| Maurice Ravel |  | + 5 | |||
| Claude Debussy |  | = | |||
| Dmitri Shostakovich |  | - 3 | |||
| Igor Stravinsky |  | + 7 | |||
| Sergei Prokofiev |  | + 5 | |||
| # | Artists | 2020 | 2020/19 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21. | Antonio Vivaldi |  | + 7 | ||
| Edward Elgar |  | - 2 | |||
| Henry Purcell |  | + 1 | |||
| Franz Liszt |  | - 8 | |||
| Sergei Rachmaninoff |  | - 6 | |||
| Giacomo Meyerbeer |  | ||||
| Jean Sibelius |  | - 4 | |||
| Carl Maria von Weber |  | + 12 | |||
| Francis Poulenc |  | + 30 | |||
| Ethel Smyth |  | + 54 | |||
| # | Artists | 2020 | 2020/19 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31. | Chevalier de Saint-George |  | |||
| Aaron Copland |  | + 1 | |||
| Arnold Schoenberg |  | - 1 | |||
| Leonard Bernstein |  | - 7 | |||
| Giacomo Puccini |  | - 5 | |||
| Glenn Gould |  | + 30 | |||
| Yehudi Menuhin |  | + 17 | |||
| Samuel Osborne Barber |  | - 2 | |||
| Gioachino Rossini |  | - 8 | |||
| Ralph Vaughan Williams |  | - 11 | |||
| # | Artists | 2020 | 2020/19 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 41. | Roy Harris |  | |||
| Christoph Willibald von Gluck |  | - 3 | |||
| Richard Strauss |  | + 8 | |||
| Edvard Grieg |  | + 31 | |||
| Pierre Boulez |  | + 5 | |||
| Claudio Monteverdi |  | + 3 | |||
| Hector Berlioz |  | - 33 | |||
| Anton Bruckner |  | - 4 | |||
| Alban Berg |  | + 15 | |||
| William Grant Still |  | + 11 | |||
An exclusive analysis based on the press articles and blog posts indexed by soclassiq.
2016 . . . 2020
150000+ articles & posts (EN)
The 30 most popular orchestras and ensembles
including opera companies
The 30 most popular venues
Providing these rankings is hard work. Many hours were required to design and develop an approach based exclusively on a textual analysis of the indexed articles and adapted to the classical music and opera context. These rankings are not the result of personal preferences or artistic opinions.
These are the best results to date. Further improvements to the algorithm may have an impact on the rankings.
Feel free to report us amazing results.