5 January: An official statement from Glyndebourne confirms that Danielle De Niese and her husband, Gus Christie, chairman of Glyndebourne Opera, are expecting their first child.
12 January: Lady Antebellum performed the National Anthem at the first ever College Football Playoff National Championship Game.
15 January: The nominations for the 2015 Brit Awards are announced, with Ed Sheeran, Sam Smith and George Ezra dominating many of the categories.
22 January: It is announced that BBC Radio 1's annual Big Weekend event this year will be held at Earlham Park, Norwich.
1 February: Idina Menzel performed the National Anthem and Katy Perry performed at the halftime show during Super Bowl XLIX on February 1, making it the most watched, most rated, and most tweeted per second halftime show.
8 February:
The 57th Grammy Awards took place at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. British singer Sam Smith won the most awards with four including; Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Pop Vocal Album, and Best New Artist. Beck's Morning Phase won Album of the Year.
Sam Smith is the big winner at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards, winning Best New Artist, and Record and Song of the Year for "Stay with Me from the album In the Lonely Hour, which subsequently won Best Vocal Album.
25 February: Ed Sheeran and Paloma Faith win Best British Male and Female Solo Artist at this year's Brit Awards, with x winning Best Album and "Uptown Funk" winning Best Single. Notable moments of the night includeKanye West's controversial performance of "All Day" and Madonna falling off stage during her performance of "Living for Love".
3 March: The London Symphony Orchestra announces the appointment of Sir Simon Rattle as its next music director, effective September 2017, with an initial contract of 5 years.
4 March: Shania Twain announced that she will be going on her first tour in eleven years. The Rock This Country Tour began on June 5, 2015, and is billed as her farewell tour. She also plans on releasing her first studio album in thirteen years later in the year.
7 March: The BBC confirms that Electro Velvet's 1920s inspired song "Still in Love with You" has been chosen to represent the UK at this year's Eurovision Song Contest.
9 March: Sam Smith releases a special remake of his song "Lay Me Down", featuring John Legend, as this year's official Comic Relief single.
10 March: Sarah Brightman confirms she has been working on a song with Andrew Lloyd Webber that she can perform in space aboard the International Space Station in September. Brightman subsequently withdraws from the planned flight, citing family commitments.
11 March:
The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra announces the appointment of Thomas Dausgaard as its 11th chief conductor, effective with the 2016–2017 season.
Simon Halsey is announced as the recipient of the Queen's Medal for Music 2014.
18 March: Julian Lloyd Webber is confirmed as the Principal of Birmingham Conservatoire.
29 March: The 2nd iHeartRadio Music Awards took place at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. Taylor Swift and Justin Timberlake were among the winners.
19 April: The 50th ACM Awards were held at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
13 May: Nick Fradiani was named winner of the fifteenth season of American Idol. Clark Beckham was named winner runner-up.
17 May: The 2015 Billboard Music Awards were held at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
19 May: Sawyer Fredericks was named winner of the eighth season of The Voice. Meghan Linsey was named runner-up.
20 May: Ye Yanchen's new work, Septet, to be premiered at St Illtud's Church, Llantwit Major, by soloists from China’s National Centre for the Performing Arts Orchestra.
23 May: The United Kingdom is represented at the Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna, Austria, by Electro Velvet, with the song "Still in Love with You".[12] They finish 24th out of 27 entries, scoring five points.
8 June: The music video for "Dark Horse" by Katy Perry reached 1 billion views on Vevo, making it the first music video by a female artist to do so and the third music video overall to do so. It was the third most-viewed YouTube video of all time, and the most-watched video by a female artist until "Blank Space" by Taylor Swift took both records a month later.
12 June: Musicians recognised in the 2015 Birthday Honours include conductor Sir Neville Marriner (Companion of Honour) composers Karl Jenkins and James MacMillan who receive knighthoods, and singers Michael Ball(OBE) and Van Morrison (knighthood)
21 June: Nadine Koutcher wins the 2015 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition.
10 July: Starting on this day albums will now be released on Fridays instead of Tuesdays in America. Some reasons for the change is to help prevent pirating, illegal downloads and "In the digital world, you can't make consumers wait".
30 July: The reunited Savatage played their first show in thirteen years at Wacken Open Air in Germany, which took place from July 30 to August 1.
30 August: The 2015 MTV Video Music Awards were held at the Microsoft Theater at L.A. Live in Los Angeles. Taylor Swift was the big winner of the night with four awards, including Video of the Year for "Bad Blood".
18–19 September: The 2015 iHeartRadio Music Festival took place at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
2 October: "Writing's on the Wall" by Sam Smith, the theme for the upcoming James Bond movie Spectre, becomes the first ever Bond theme to reach number 1 in the UK.
23 October:
"Hello", the lead single from Adele's third studio album 25, is released to intense global media attention. The album (released 20 November) becomes the fastest selling in UK chart history, ending the year on 2.5 million.
The music video for Adele's "Hello" broke the Vevo Record for the most views within a 24-hour span with 27.7 million views, beating out the previous record held by Taylor Swift's "Bad Blood". It also broke the record for shortest time to attain 100 million Vevo views, previously held by Miley Cyrus' "Wrecking Ball".
2 November: Adele's comeback single "Hello" became the first song with over a million digital sales in a week.
7 November: the 49th Country Music Association Awards was held at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville.
22 November: The 2015 American Music Awards was held at the Microsoft Theatre in Los Angeles.
28 November: Billboard reported Adele's 25 sold 3.38 million in pure album sales in its first week of release, according to Nielsen Music. That’s the largest single sales week for an album since Nielsen began tracking point-of-sale music purchases in 1991, surpassing the previous single-week sales record, held by NSYNC's No Strings Attached (2.42 million sold in the week ending March 26, 2000).
3 December: Former Stone Temple Pilots & Velvet Revolver singer Scott Weiland is found dead on his tour bus at the age of 48.
8 December: Nominations for the 58th Annual Grammy Awards were announced, with Kendrick Lamar leading the list.
15 December: Jordan Smith was named winner of the ninth season of the The Voice. Emily Ann Roberts was named runner-up.
Please address any comments concerning this page to The Music Maestro
Mark Chard BSc
Page created: 19th January 2016
Last edited: 19th January 2016
