Sunday (2/12) on the Post-Dispatch blog Culture Club (St. Louis, Missouri), Sarah Bryan Miller reports, “The classical music Grammy awards are no longer a part of the big pop-oriented Sunday night show. Instead, there was a special early ceremony, viewable online, for the newly downsized category. That puts classical into its own little ghetto, but, on the plus side, fans don’t have to endure the big pop-oriented Sunday night show. The winners’ circle included an unusual amount of new music; the Best Orchestral award, to Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic for their recording of Brahms’ Symphony No. 4 on Deutsche Grammophon, was one of two standard-composer exceptions. … ‘Lonely Motel,’ by Steven Mackey (his piano concerto ‘Stumble to Grace,’ composed for Orli Shaham, was premiered by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra last fall), recorded by Eighth Blackbird on Cedille Records, took Best Small Ensemble Performance.” The Best Instrumental Solo was Christopher Lamb’s performance of Joseph Schwantner’s Percussion Concerto featured on the album Chasing Light… by conductor Giancarlo Guerrero and the Nashville Symphony Orchestra on Naxos. The album’s title track, also by Schwantner, was commissioned as part of the Ford Made in America program, a partnership of the League of American Orchestras and Meet The Composer, made possible by Ford Motor Company Fund, and generously supported by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Posted February 13, 2012
