Three months ahead of the 2023 Grammy Awards, not all is quiet on the Recording Academy front, far from it. In the past few days, 2023 nominations were announced, and the 2022 Latin Grammys were awarded.
The Latin Grammys provided some major financial news about where the global genre is and where it’s headed. Music Business Worldwide and other sources are confidently predicting that the recorded music market for Latin artists in the U.S. will generate more than a billion dollars in revenue in 2022.
The prediction is based on $886 million in Latin music retail revenues in 2021, with a recent 20% revenue increase year to year, and Latin music’s growth is also outpacing that of the wider U.S. recorded music market, which is predicted to generate $15 billion in 2022.
At the Latin awards, the amazing story of the night was in the category of Best New Artist, the title shared (with Silvana Estrada) by 95-year-old Angela Álvarez, the Cuban American composer/singer, whose songs were recorded last year on a self-titled album with the assistance of Andy García.
“To those who have yet to make their dreams come true, know that although life is hard, there’s always a way out, and with faith and love everything can be achieved,” Álvarez said at the awards ceremony.
She has written around 50 songs, including “Romper el Yugo” (Break the chains), “Añoranzas” (Yearnings), “Mi Gran Amor” (My great love), and “Camino Sin Rumbo” (I wander aimlessly).
Álvarez, who lives in Baton Rouge, La., is the grandmother of nine — including Carlos José Alvarez, a Los Angeles-based composer and producer, who brought her to attention — and the great-grandmother of “about 15,” according to reports.
Top winners at the Latin Grammys included Rosalía for Album of the Year, Tocarte for Song of the Year and Record of the Year, Marco Antonio Solís as Person of the Year, and Rita Lee and Amanda Miguel with lifetime achievement awards. René Pérez Joglar “Residente” has won the most Latin Grammy Awards of all time — a total of 28 as of 2022.
With the announcement of the nominations for the 2023 Grammy Awards, let’s look at the small section for classical recordings. Strangely enough, although there are only a dozen classical-music categories among the Grammys’ 91, and they don’t get the headlines, Wagner specialist and conductor Georg Solti, who died in 1997, still holds the record for the most Grammys ever, with 31 awards. During his career, Solti was nominated 74 times.
Until just three years ago, producer Quincy Jones and bluegrass singer Alison Krauss were the only non-classical recording artists behind Solti, while Pierre Boulez, Vladimir Horowitz, and John Williams stayed on top. As of now, Beyoncé, Chick Corea, and Jay-Z are approaching Solti’s 31 awards. Beyoncé has nine nominations for 2023, and with three wins, she would equal Solti’s record.
Classical Grammy nominees for 2023, announced last week, include:
Best Engineered Album, Classical
— Bates: Philharmonia Fantastique — The Making of the Orchestra, Edwin Outwater, Chicago Symphony Orchestra
— Beethoven: Symphony No. 6; Stucky: Silent Spring, Manfred Honeck, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra
— Perspectives, Third Coast Percussion
— Tuvayhun — Beatitudes for a Wounded World, Anita Brevik, Nidarosdomens jentekor, Trondheimsolistene
— Williams: Violin Concerto No. 2 & Selected Film Themes, Anne-Sophie Mutter, John Williams, Boston Symphony Orchestra
Producer of the Year, Classical
— Jonathan Allen
— Christoph Franke
— James Ginsburg
— Elaine Martone
— Judith Sherman
Best Orchestral Performance
— Adams, John Luther: Sila — The Breath of the World, Doug Perkins, University of Michigan Department of Chamber Music, University of Michigan Percussion Ensemble
— Dvořák: Symphonies Nos. 7–9, Gustavo Dudamel, Los Angeles Philharmonic
— Eastman: Stay on It, Christopher Rountree, Wild Up
— John Williams — The Berlin Concert, John Williams, Berliner Philharmoniker
— Works by Florence Price, Jessie Montgomery, Valerie Coleman, Michael Repper, New York Youth Symphony
Best Opera Recording
— Aucoin: Eurydice, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus
— Blanchard: Fire Shut Up in My Bones, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus
— Davis: X — The Life and Times of Malcolm X, Gil Rose, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Odyssey Opera Chorus
Best Choral Performance
— Bach: St. John Passion, John Eliot Gardiner, English Baroque Soloists, Monteverdi Choir
— Born, Donald Nally, The Crossing
— Verdi: Requiem — The Met Remembers 9/11, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus
Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance
— Beethoven: Complete String Quartets, Volume 2 — The Middle Quartets, Dover Quartet
— Musical Remembrances, Neave Trio
— Perspectives, Third Coast Percussion
— Shaw: Evergreen, Attacca Quartet
— What Is American, PUBLIQuartet
Best Classical Instrumental Solo
— Abels: Isolation Variation, Hilary Hahn
— Bach: The Art of Life, Daniil Trifonov
— Beethoven: Diabelli Variations, Mitsuko Uchida
— Letters for the Future, Time for Three, Xian Zhang, Philadelphia Orchestra
— A Night in Upper Town — The Music of Zoran Krajacic, Mak Grgić
Best Classical Solo Vocal Album
— Eden, Joyce DiDonato (soloist), Maxim Emelyanychev, Il Pomo D’Oro
— How Do I Find You, Sasha Cooke (soloist), Kirill Kuzmin
— Okpebholo: Lord, How Come Me Here? Will Liverman (soloist), J’Nai Bridges, Caen Thomason-Redus, Paul Sánchez
— Stranger — Works for Tenor by Nico Muhly, Nicholas Phan (soloist), Eric Jacobson, Brooklyn Rider, The Knights
— Voice of Nature — The Anthropocene, Renée Fleming (soloist), Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Best Classical Compendium
— An Adoption Story, Starr Parodi and Kitt Wakeley; Jeff Fair, Starr Parodi and Kitt Wakeley (producers)
— Aspire, JP Jofre and Seunghee Lee; Enrico Fagone (conductor); Jonathan Allen (producer)
— A Concert for Ukraine, Yannick Nézet-Séguin (conductor); David Frost (producer)
— The Lost Birds, Voces8; Barnaby Smith and Christopher Tin (conductors); Sean Patrick Flahaven and Christopher Tin (producers)
Best Contemporary Classical Composition
— Akiho: Ligneous Suite, Andy Akiho (composer), Ian Rosenbaum, Dover Quartet
— Bermel: Intonations, Derek Bermel (composer), JACK Quartet
— Gubaidulina: The Wrath of God, Sofia Gubaidulina (composer), Andris Nelsons, Gewandhausorchester
— Puts: Contact, Kevin Puts (composer), Xian Zhang, Time for Three, Philadelphia Orchestra
— Simon: Requiem for the Enslaved, Carlos Simon (composer), MK Zulu, Marco Pavé, Hub New Music
