Il Divo honoured at Classical Brits

Il Divo have become the first ever recipients of the 'Artist of the Decade' award at this year's Classical Brits.

The opera-trained four-piece were given the award in recognition of their substantial impact on the classical genre in recent years after selling over 25 million albums worldwide.

"It's really strange to me, our success - the four of us are singers, we've all been singers for a long time prior to Il Divo, we go into the studio, we take songs, we record them the way that we all feel them and out comes Il Divo, and that's it!" said the band's Urs Buhler.

Other winners included late composer John Barry, who won the 'Outstanding Contribution to Music' award for his work on numerous movie scores, which include his famous compositions for the James Bond films.

Antonio Pappano won 'Male Artist of the Year' and Alison Balsom picked up 'Female Artist of the Year', while the 'Classic FM Album of the Year' went to Moonlight Serenade by Andre Rieu and Johann Strauss.

Performances on the night included appearances from Katherine Jenkins, Dame Shirley Bassey and the cast of Les Miserables.

The Classical BRIT Awards 2011 was hosted by Myleene Klass and will be shown on ITV1 on May 29.