Classical Grammy Winners Represent Contemporary Music Well

Sunday, many watched as the 54th annual Grammy awards were presented to some of the biggest talents in the popular music industry. The broadcast also featured a number of performances by some of the best of today’s performers and tributes to artists who were lost over the past year. However, before the broadcasted portion of the ceremony, there was a bit of a different ceremony taking place. The pre-broadcast is where the awards in the less mainstream categories were announced.

As a follow up to our earlier report on the nominees for the Best Contemporary Classical Composition, here is the list of the privileged few who took home the golden statuette across the classical category:

Best Orchestral Performance: Brahms, Symphony No. 4; Gustavo Dudamel (conductor), Los Angeles Philharmonic

Best Opera Recording: John Adams, Doctor Atomic; Alan Gilbert (conductor), Metropolitan Opera Company

Best Choral Performance: “Light & Gold”; Eric Whitacre (conductor), Christopher Glynn and Hila Plitmann, The King’s Singers, Laudibus, Pavão Quartet, and The Eric Whitacre Singers

Best Small Ensemble Performance: Steven Mackey, “Lonely Motel – Music From Slide”; eighth blackbird

Best Classical Instrumental Solo: Joseph Schwantner, Concerto For Percussion & Orchestra; Giancarlo Guerrero (conductor), Christopher Lamb (soloist), Nashville Symphony

Best Classical Vocal Solo: Diva Divo; Joyce DiDonato, Kazushi Ono, Orchestre De L’Opéra National De Lyon, Choeur De L’Opéra National De Lyon

Best Contemporary Classical Composition: Robert Aldridge, Elmer Gantry

Surprisingly, of the seven awards given out in the classical category, five of the winning performances (or pieces) were of contemporary works. The awards for Best Orchestral Performance (Brahms, Symphony No. 4) and Best Classical Vocal Solo (Diva Divo- a collection of operatic numbers) were the only exceptions.

The Best Small Ensemble Performance award went to the ever flexible and always engaging eighth blackbird. The work represented on the recording was an abridged version of Steven Mackey’s Lonely Motel. The work, a concert length stage work that they originally premiered in 2009, embodies a place that’s not exactly musical theater, not exactly opera, not exactly song cycle; it’s one of those genre-bending creations (we also reported on the release of that album– you can read more about it here). As always, eighth blackbird’s performance of the work is carefully nuanced and highly polished. This Grammy is the group’s third Grammy win.

Mr. Mackey’s work was also nominated in the Best Contemporary Classical Composition category. Despite the strong merits of Mr. Mackey’s piece, it Robert Aldridge’s opera, Elmer Gantry, that took the award in that category. With a libretto written by Herschel Garfein, the work has received several performances since its 2007 premiere, including at Montclair State University, University of Minnesota, and The Florentine Opera Company (whose recording is the one that was nominated. The creators used Sinclair Lewis’s 1926 novel of the same name as the basis of their work. The effect of the piece has strong similarities with Copland’s populist scores and Gershwin’s more symphonic works. Since its premiere, Elmer Gantry has garnered praise from audiences and critics alike.

The award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo went to percussionist Christopher Lamb for his performance of Joseph Schwantner’s “Concerto for Percussion & Orchestra”. Schwantner wrote this tour-de-force the work in 1995 for the New York Philharmonic’s 150th anniversary at the request of Christopher Lamb who is the New York Philharmonic’s principle percussionist. Lamb’s Grammy winning performance of the concerto was with the Nashville Symphony led by Giancarlo Guerrero, and was recorded by Naxos as a part of their “American Masters” series. The work itself is emblematic of Schwantner’s inventive and affective harmonic and timbral coloring.

The recording of John Adams’ Dr. Atomic which won Best Opera Recording needs little introduction. The work itself has held a place of prominence since its premiere in 2005 and has had several new productions across the globe. This new recording is actually a DVD of a production at the Metropolitan Opera in 2008 (the DVD was released just last January). The music direction was provided by New York Philharmonic music director Alan Gilbert, and the cast included Gerald Finley, Sasha Cooke, and Gary Halvorson. The production was directed by the opera’s librettist Peter Sellars.

Though the presentation of the Grammy awards in the classical category is not seen by the world, the work and talent of these performers and composers is certainly worth as much attention and reward as popular counterparts.