John Corigliano’s Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan Garners Two Wins:
Best Contemporary Classical Composition and Best Classical Vocal Performance;
The Pacifica Quartet Wins Best Chamber Music Performance for Elliott Carter’s String Quartets Nos. 1 & 5;
The Los Angeles Opera Production of Kurt Weill’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
Wins Best Classical Album and Best Opera Recording;
Charles Bruffy and the Phoenix Chorale Win Best Small Ensemble Performance
for Spotless Rose: Hymns to the Virgin Mary.

On February 8, 2009, The Recording Academy® honored artists from labels Naxos, EuroArts and Chandos Records with six Grammy® Awards.

Israeli-born soprano Hila Plitmann won the Grammy® Award for Best Classical Vocal Performance for the world premiere recording of John Corigliano’s Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan. The Naxos recording features Hila Plitmann with conductor JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic. Pulitzer, Oscar, multi-Grammy®, and Grawemeyer award-winning composer John Corigliano won the Best Classical Contemporary Composition Grammy® Award for the work.

Recently named 2009 Ensemble of the Year by Musical America, The Pacifica Quartet won the Best Chamber Music Performance Grammy® Award for their acclaimed Naxos recording of Elliott Carter’s String Quartets Nos. 1 & 5. The Pacifica Quartet has recorded the complete cycle of Elliott Carter’s string quartets in two volumes, the second of which will be released by Naxos on February 24.

The Los Angeles Opera production of Kurt Weill’s Rise and Fall of The City of Mahagonny, released on DVD by EuroArts, earned Grammy® Awards for Best Classical Album and Best Opera Recording. The performance featured conductor James Conlon, soloists Anthony Dean Griffey, Patti LuPone and Audra McDonald; the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra and Chorus; and was produced by Fred Vogler. This marks the first time ever that DVD recordings have been eligible for Grammy® Award consideration in these categories. Only the audio portion of the DVD is considered.

Charles Bruffy and The Phoenix Chorale took home the Grammy® Award for Best Small Ensemble Performance for their recording Spotless Rose: Hymns to the Virgin Mary, from Chandos Records.

CORIGLIANO: Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems Of Bob Dylan
(JoAnn Falletta; Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra)

Best Classical Contemporary Composition
John Corigliano

Best Classical Vocal Performance
Hila Plitmann

CARTER: String Quartets Nos. 1 And 5
(Pacifica Quartet)

Best Chamber Music Performance

WEILL: Rise And Fall Of The City Of Mahagonny
James Conlon, conductor; Anthony Dean Griffey, Patti LuPone & Audra McDonald; Fred Vogler, producer (Donnie Ray Albert, John Easterlin, Steven Humes, Mel Ulrich & Robert Wörle; Los Angeles Opera Chorus; Los Angeles Opera Orchestra)
Best Classical Album

Best Opera Recording

Spotless Rose: Hymns To The Virgin Mary
(Charles Bruffy, conductor; Phoenix Chorale)

Best Small Ensemble Performance

Tags: Anthony Dean Griffey, Audra McDonald, blog.naxos.com, Charles Bruffy, Elliott Carter, Fred Vogler, Grammy Awards, Grammy winners, Hila Plitmann, James Conlon, John Corigliano, Los Angeles Opera and Orchestra, Mr. Tambourine Man, Naxos of America, NaxosDirect, Patti LuPone, Phoenix Chorale, Rise and Fall of The City of Mahagonny, Spotless Rose:Hymns to the Virgin Mary, The Pacifica Quartet

Naxos congratulates two of its most distinguished recording artists-conductor Marin Alsop, Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and the Pacifica Quartet-who recently were named as two of Musical America’s 2009 honorees. Ms. Alsop and the Quartet share this honor with renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma (Musician of the Year), mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe (Vocalist of the Year), and Christopher Rouse (Composer of the Year).

Marin Alsop, Musical America’s Conductor of the Year, has an extensive recorded legacy for Naxos, including an ongoing series of live recordings with the Baltimore Symphony of music by Antonin Dvořák (Naxos 8.570714), the complete symphonies of Brahms with the London Philharmonic, and three discs of works by Béla Bartók. Additionally, Ms. Alsop has made numerous recordings devoted to music by American composers, including her mentor Leonard Bernstein (Chichester Psalms; Serenade), as well as Samuel Barber, John Adams, Philip Glass, Michael Daugherty, and Michael Torke. Her upcoming releases will include John Adams’ Nixon in China with Opera Colorado, and Leonard Bernstein’s Mass, a work she has championed this season.

Hailed by Gramophone as “one of the finest and most energetic quartets of the younger generation, The Pacifica Quartet, named 2009 Ensemble of the Year by Musical America, was just honored with a Grammy® nomination for Best Chamber Music Performance for its acclaimed Naxos recording of Elliott Carter String Quartets Nos. 1 & 5 (Naxos 8.559362). The Quartet has won numerous accolades for its recording; Steve Smith of The New York Times deemed it “a stunning disc of Quartets No. 1 and No. 5 … on Naxos.” The Times of London also praised the album, saying “The Pacificas, who have given all five works in a prodigious single programme, play magnificently.” The second volume of Carter quartets is due for release in February 2009.

The annual Musical America Awards recognize artistic excellence and achievement and coincide with the publication of the 2009 Musical America International Directory of the Performing Arts, which, in addition to its comprehensive industry listings, pays homage to each of its awardees in its editorial pages. Musical America will present its awards in a special ceremony at Lincoln Center on December 15.

Hailed as one of the world’s leading conductors for her artistic vision and commitment to accessibility in classical music, Marin Alsop made history with her appointment as the 12th music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. With her inaugural concerts in September 2007, she became the first woman to head a major American orchestra. She also holds the title of Conductor Emeritus at the Bournemouth Symphony in the United Kingdom, where she served as the principal conductor from 2002-2008 and is music director of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in California.

In 2005, Ms. Alsop was named a MacArthur Fellow, the first conductor ever to receive this prestigious award. In 2007, she was honored with a European Women of Achievement Award, in 2008 she was inducted as a fellow into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2009 Musical America named her “Conductor of the Year.” A regular guest conductor with the New York Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic, Ms. Alsop appears frequently as a guest conductor with the most distinguished orchestras around the world. In addition to her performance activities, she is also an active recording artist with award-winning cycles of Brahms and Barber orchestral works. She is currently recording the Dvořák symphonies with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Marin Alsop attended Yale University and received her master’s degree from The Juilliard School. In 1989, her conducting career was launched when she won the Leopold Stokowski International Conducting Competition in New York.

The Pacifica Quartet, in residence at the University of Chicago, garnered international attention in 2002 when it performed all five of American composer Elliott Carter’s quartets in a single evening. Of that groundbreaking performance, The New York Times wrote: “That [the Quartet] played more than two hours of the most difficult music ever conceived with such technical assurance and keen musicianship was impressive enough. But they did more, bringing out the music’s volatile emotions, delicacy and even, in places, plucky humor.”

Tags: blog.naxos.com, Elliott Carter, Marin Alsop, Naxos, NaxosDirect, The Pacifica Quartet, University of Chicago