Raye, Nile Rodgers to Decide 2026 Abbey Road Music Photography Awards

Raye and Nile Rodgers have been tapped to assist choose the fifth version of the Abbey Road Music Photography Awards.

The free-to-enter competitors goals to acknowledge the most effective in music and live performance images from all over the world. The winners of the 2026 MPAs shall be introduced Sept. 24 at a particular ceremony at Abbey Road Studios in London.

The contest shall be judged by a mixture of professional photographers and established musicians. On the latter finish, becoming a member of Raye and Rodgers shall be Måneskin’s Damiano David, Abbey Road’s producer-in-residence King Harpoon, Lilly Fontaine of Leeds-based indie rockers English Teacher, and Japanese singer-songwriter Hikaru Utada. 

The photographers on the panel embody MPA head choose and co-founder Rankin, in addition to Platon, Dean Chalkley, Dennis Morris, Jackie Lee Young, Phoebe Fox, and Simon Wheatley. Rolling Stone’s personal Sacha Lecca will serve on the shortlist panel alongside Andreia Lemos, Rich Fury, Khali Ackford, Ebru Yildiz, and Ped Millichamp.

The MPAs additionally introduced photographer Roberta Bayley because the recipient of this 12 months’s Icon Award. Bayley is famend for capturing the New York City punk scene of the Seventies, capturing iconic photographs of the numerous artists who got here up in that scene, or handed by way of it, resembling Iggy Pop, Debbie Harry and Blondie, Elvis Costello, the Clash, Richard Hell, X-Ray Spex, and extra. One of Bayley’s most well-known photographs is the portrait of the Ramones that appeared on the quilt of their 1976 self-titled debut album. 

“I am very honored to be receiving the Abbey Road Icon award, especially to be in the company of such great photographers as David Bailey, Anton Corbijn, and Jill Furmanovsky,” Bayley mentioned in a press release. “This New York punk has come a long way!”

Submissions at the moment are being accepted for all eight open classes on the MPAs’ website. These embody Festivals, Emerging Photographer of the Year, Music Moment of the Year, Live Music, Behind the Scenes, Portrait, Underground Scenes, and this 12 months’s visitor class, 50 Years of Punk. There can even be two invited classes, Judges’ Choice and Icon.