One of my favorite bloggers, the publicist Amanda Ameer, recently made these comments on her Artsjournal blog Life’s a Pitch:

I have found that the Grammies are a point of reference for the “outside world” about classical artists, that is, a way to let people who haven’t heard of a certain artist know he or she is “that good”. Sometimes, I’ll meet someone and the conversation will go like this: 

What do you do? Classical music PR.

Oh, that’s cool. Name someone you work for. Is it? And…Hilary Hahn?

Mmmm…don’t know her. She’s a violinist. Mmm…. She played for the Pope’s 80th birthday. Weird, OK…. She played on ‘The Village’ soundtrack. I loved ‘Sixth Sense’. She won a Grammy. Oh! Cool, great, yeah.

Amanda continues:

… the Grammies are a cultural touchstone - is this the right use of that phrase? - or, perhaps more accurately, a popular culture mile marker of success. What is that worth, though, monetarily speaking, slash, what does winning a Grammy mean for an artist’s overall profile? 

Both The Kings Singers and Hilary have won Grammies before, so I already get to slap “Grammy Award-winning…” next to their names in their bios and pop-culture-mile-marker-of-success name-drop “Grammy” to folks outside the industry.** BUT - would Grammy wins this year result in, oh, what’s the word - “album sales”? Does a shiny Grammy sticker on an album make the difference (it might), or is there more we can do to channel the win of a mainstream award into recording and concert revenue?

You’ll notice that Amanda used her blog cleverly, not failing to mention that two of her private clients—Hillary Hahn and The King Singers—received nominations. Brava.

It is easy to complain about the relevance of an award that doesn’t have the prestige, in the “classical world,” of the Grawemeyer or Pulitzer; but the GRAMMY® Award, though still largely associated with pop music, is one of the most widely-recognized awards in the U.S. music business (and, I would even say, the world). And if we are attempting to reach new audiences with some of our artists and releases, having that award attached to their names is pretty important. Additionally, the award is a sales driver, which means a great deal to the music business even in bad times.

Naxos and our family of distributed labels saw many of our wonderful artists nominated this year, including the Pacifica Quartet, whose recording of Elliott Carter’s String Quartets Nos. 1 and 5 was nothing short of astonishing. It also was fitting that this nomination came just before Mr. Carter’s 100th birthday this Thursday, December 11. The Quartet was nominated in the category of Best Chamber Music Performance and also will be honored at this year’s Musical America Awards with the 2009 Ensemble of the Year Award. And for everyone who has been asking about Volume 2 of the Carter Quartets, here goes: FEBRUARY 2009. BTW: Legendary producer Judith Sherman also picked up a nomination for Producer of the Year for her work on the Carter String Quartets on Naxos and four additional albums.

John Corigliano’s Mr. Tambourine Man received a nomination for Best Classical Contemporary Composition. For this recording, Corigliano, a Pulitzer-, Oscar-, Grammy®-, and Grawemeyer award-winning composer (yes, there are all those award listings and they ALL are important), collaborated with conductor JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic. In addition, the recording’s superb soloist, Israeli soprano Hila Plitmann, received a nomination for Best Classical Vocal Performance. She has made recordings of works by David Del Tredici, including Vintage Alice and some of his songs. For Mr. Tambourine Man, because of the re-orchestration—the work was originally written for Sylvia McNair and scored for voice and piano—the vocal part was reconceived for “amplified soprano.” Plitmann is amazing.

Chorus master Henryk Wojnarowski and conductor Antoni Wit received a Choral Performance nomination for the Naxos recording of Karol Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater with the Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir. A Best Engineered Album (Classical) nomination went to engineer John Newton for his work on the Naxos recording Respighi: Church Windows, Brazilian Impressions, Rossiniana, featuring conductor JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra.

Our distributed labels also did amazingly well this year.

Artists from British-based label Chandos received five nominations in multiple categories. Spotless Rose: Hymns to the Virgin Mary, featuring the Phoenix Chorale, conductor Charles Bruffy, and produced by Blanton Alspaugh, was nominated for Best Classical Album (Awards to Artists and Producer). Additionally, Mr. Bruffy and the Phoenix Chorale received a nod in the Best Small Ensemble Performance category. Spotless Rose includes choral works by Stephen Paulus, Benjamin Britten, Cecilia McDowall, Herbert Howells, Javier Busto, Healey Willan, and Jean Belmont Ford. On a personal level, I need to add that this recording is a special favorite among many of us at Naxos.

Another Chandos choral recording, Rheinberger: Sacred Choral Works, with conductor Charles Bruffy leading the Kansas City Chorale and Phoenix Bach Choir, earned nominations for Best Surround Sound Album and Best Choral Performance. Finally, a Best Orchestral Performance nomination went to conductor Rumon Gamba and the Iceland Symphony Orchestra for their Chandos recording D’Indy Orchestral Works, Volume 1.

A EuroArts production earned two nominations in the categories of Best Classical Album (Award to Artists and Producers) and Best Opera Recording (Award to Conductor, Producer, and Principal Soloists) for the DVD recording of Kurt Weill’s Rise and Fall of The City of Mahagonny. The performance featured conductor James Conlon, soloists Anthony Dean Griffey, Patti LuPone and Audra McDonald, and the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra and Chorus, produced by Fred Vogler. (This is the first year DVD recordings of operas are eligible for Grammy Awards. Only the audio portion of the DVD is considered in the nominating process.”)

Nominations for Best Opera Recording also went to conductors Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs for their CPO recording of Jean-Baptiste Lully’s Psyché with the Boston Early Music Festival. Mr. O’Dette and Mr. Stubbs also were nominated last year for their CPO recording of Lully’s Thésée with the same ensemble.

Renowned Italian conductor and Baroque specialist Rinaldo Alessandrini was nominated for his Naïve classique recording of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo.

Finally, violinist Elmar Oliveira earned a nomination for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance with Orchestra for his Artek recording of Violin Concertos by Ernst Bloch and Benjamin Lees, with John McLaughlin Williams conducting the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine.

Tags: Amanda Ameer, Anthony Dean Griffey, Audra McDonald, Benjamin Britten, Blanton Alspaugh, Cecilia McDowall, Charles Bruffy, GRAMMY® Award, Healey Willan, Herbert Howells, James Conlon, Javier Busto, Jean Belmont Ford, John McLaughlin Williams, Kansas City Chorale, Kurt Weill, Patti LuPone, Paul O’Dette, Phoenix Chorale, Rumon Gamba, sequenza21, Stephen Paulus, Stephen Stubbs

ATMA-Classique releases the latest recording by acclaimed early and Baroque music ensemble Les Voix Humaines, entitled William Lawes: The Harp Consorts (ATMA-Classique ACD2 2372). For this recording, Les Voix regulars-gambists Susie Napper and Margaret Little-collaborate with renowned harpist Maxine Eilander, American lutenist Stephen Stubbs (co-artistic director of the Boston Early Music Festival and founder of the Seattle Academy of Baroque Opera), and American-born Canadian violinist David Greenberg, who spent 10 years performing with the Toronto-based Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and Chamber Choir.

The 11 consorts by William Lawes “for the Harp, Bass Viol, Violin and Theorbo” are known collectively as “The Harp Consorts.” This creative collection occupies a unique niche in music history, with no exact precedent, and, through the catastrophic interruption of the English Civil War, no descendants whatsoever. That war not only ended the brilliant musical circle that had assembled at the court of Charles the First for which these works were conceived, but also ended the lives of Charles and Lawes himself at the siege of Chester in 1645. This is the first complete recording of Lawes’ Harp Consorts. It is the specificity of the instrumentation and the inventive and idiomatic writing for each voice, combined with Lawes’ intensely personal, expressive and quirky musical language, that make the collection a unique treasure.

Maxine Eilander was born in Holland, grew up in South Africa, and now lives in Seattle. She plays on a range of early harps: the Italian arpa doppia, the Spanish cross-strung harp, the German ‘Davidsharfe’, the Welsh triple harp, and the single action pedal harp. Eilander has appeared as a soloist with many ensembles, including Teatro Lirico, Tragicomedia, Tafelmusik, The Toronto Consort, The Sixteen, and Seattle Baroque. She is managing director of the Seattle Academy of Baroque Opera, where she teaches harp.

After a 30-year career in Europe, Stephen Stubbs recently returned to his native Seattle to establish his new opera company Pacific Operaworks. David Greenberg taught himself folk fiddle tunes by ear as a young child growing up in Maryland. He spent the ‘90s performing and recording with Tafelmusik while developing a specialty in Scottish Baroque-folk music and has recorded several CDs in this genre, including the groundbreaking Bach meets Cape Breton.

Susie Napper and Margaret Little have thrilled audiences with their performances of exotic masterpieces of the 17th and 18th centuries for the past two decades. Les Voix Humaines are renowned for their spectacular arrangements of a wide variety of music for two viols, as well as their brilliant performances of contemporary music commissioned by the duo. Their Montreal concert season offers a unique opportunity for an international array of instrumentalists and singers to explore unusual repertoire that includes virtuoso viols. The duo is regularly joined by some of Montreal’s finest young gambists to form the Voix Humaines Consort, which specializes in the vast 17th-century repertoire for viol consort. Les Voix Humaines has recorded over 20 CDs on the ATMA, Naxos, and CBC Records labels, several of which have received critical acclaim and prizes.

Tags: ATMA Classique, David Greenberg, Les Voix Humaines, Margaret Little, Maxine Eilander, NaxosDirect, Stephen Stubbs, Susie Napper, William Lawes

Hailed by the Times (London) as the “world’s leading festival of early music”, the Boston Early Music Festival (BEMF), directed by Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs, has received two Grammy® nominations for its recordings of Baroque operas on the CPO label: Conradi’s Ariadne (777073-2) and Lully’s Thésée (777240-2).The ensemble’s much-awaited third recording, Jean- Baptiste Lully’s Psyché (777367-2), was recorded at New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall following BEMF’s North American premiere performances at its 14th biennial festival. This world premiere recording features soprano Carolyn Sampson in the title role and Canadian soprano Karina Gauvin as Venus. Other cast members include Aaron Sheehan, Colin Balzer, Amanda Forsythe, Mireille Lebel, Yulia Van Doren, Olivier Laquerre, Jason McStoots, Matthew Shaw, Aaron Engebreth, Ricard Bordas, Teresa Wakim, and José Lemos.

It was 330 years ago that Lully’s tragédie lyrique Psyché was performed at the court of Louis XIV. The plot concerns the fate of the most beautiful girl in the world and the jealousy of the goddess Venus; hell, death, and the devil; frightful journeys to the underworld; and the happy marriage of the god of love Amor and Psyche - that is, once her divine mother-in-law no longer has anything against this union, since Jupiter has endowed her soul with immortality. This magnificent and richly varied, entertaining as well as horrifying, musically and scenically uncommonly lavish opera from the France of the Sun King was presented last year at the Boston Early Music Festival.

Tags: 777367-2, Aaron Engebreth, Aaron Sheehan, Amanda Forsythe, Carolyn Sampson, Colin Balzer, Jason McStoots, Jean-Baptiste Lully, José Lemos, Karina Gauvin, Matthew Shaw, Mireille Lebel, Olivier Laquerre, Paul O'Dette, Psyché, Ricard Bordas, Stephen Stubbs, Teresa Wakim, Yulia Van Doren