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Hennessy teams up with Abbey Road Studios
By Alice BrookerLVMH-owned Hennessy Cognac has partnered with recording studio Abbey Road for its Music Photography Awards (MPAs), celebrating music scenes across the globe.
The MPAs are the first awards to recognise music photography, and will be judged by industry professionals.
One category includes the Hennessy Championing Scenes Award, an open-entry contest spotlighting the ‘vibrancy of global subcultures’ and the people documenting these scenes. The brand will present the award.
Simon Wheatley, an acclaimed photographer known for his work in the grime music industry, will feature as a guest judge on the Hennessy Championing Scenes panel.
Wheatley said: “I’m interested not just in the music itself, but where it’s coming from. Subcultures emerge from cracks in society and that’s what fascinates me most. Grime reflected a youthful discontent, and when I began to hear it, I wanted to capture the place of angst and alienation from which it sprung.
“I believe that a documentarian of musical subculture should reveal the social texture of the sound, and, as a guest judge for the inaugural Abbey Road Studios Music Photography Awards, I’m excited to celebrate the insights of other photographers into the movements they chronicle as part of the Championing Scenes category. Grime was a great adventure – for me that’s what photography has always been about.”
Hennessy will award the Championing Scenes winner with a ‘package of support’, including the chance to collaborate on an international project with the brand in 2023.
Also on the judging panel for the MPAs will be British photographers Jill Furmanovsky and John Rankin Waddell, commonly known as Rankin, plus American photographer Dana Scruggs.
The Cognac brand also teamed up with recording studio Abbey Road for a campaign in 2017.
Entries for the Music Photography Awards are now open, and can be entered by photographers at all stages of their career through abbeyroadmusicphotographyawards.com until 21 March 2022.
The winners of all nine MPA categories will be revealed at a ceremony on 14 May 2022, hosted at Abbey Road Studios.
Earlier this month, the brand partnered with architect Daniel Libeskind to unveil a new design for one of the rarest bottlings in its collection, Richard Hennessy.