Neglected as classical music is at the GRAMMYs, at least as far as the show is concerned, that's what we'll focus on here; if you missed the telecast on Sunday, read about the awards here.
On top: The Brooklyn trio Fun won the award for best new artist and their song We Are Young won Song of the Year. Somebody That I Used to Know, by Gotye, featuring Kimbra, won Record of the Year, while the British folk-rockers Mumford & Sons Babel won Album of the Year.
The local-interest lead, of course, is the San Francisco Symphony’s 15th GRAMMY award, this time the MTT/SFS recording of John Adams' Harmonielehre and Short Ride in a Fast Machine from the orchestra's 2012 American Mavericks festival and tour. The category is Best Orchestral Performance.
This is the eighth award for a recording on the orchestra's own SFS Media label, following seven GRAMMYs for the recent recording cycle of works by Gustav Mahler. Among other winners of interest:
- Look at these names among the Best Folk Album winners: Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer, and Chris Thile for The Goat Rodeo Sessions (also winning Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical).
- In the Best Musical Theater Album category, unexpectedly (at least to me) the Glen Hansard-Marketa Irglova Once: A New Musical beat out the new Broadway productions of Sondheim's Follies (Elaine Paige, Bernadette Peters, Danny Burstein, Jan Maxwell) and The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess with Audra McDonald.
- Righteously so, Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris won the Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media.
- Somewhat less justified, but acceptable, is the victory of the Trent Reznor-Atticus Ross score for The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo in the Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media.
- Chick Corea's Mozart Goes Dancing won Best Instrumental Composition (over the Chris and Dave Brubeck Music of Ansel Adams: America).
- Life & Breath, choral works by René Clausen, won Best Choral Performance for the Kansas City Chorale, conducted by Charles Bruffy; also Best Engineered Album, Classical.
- Conductor Antoni Wit, producers Aleksandra Nagórko and Andrzej Sasin, for Penderecki's Fonogrammi, Horn Concerto, The Awakening of Jacob, others.
- eighth blackbird won Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance for Meanwhile; the fourth GRAMMY for the ensemble.
- Stephen Hartke won Best Contemporary Classical Composition for the same album for his composition Meanwhile — Incidental Music to Imaginary Puppet Plays.
- Kim Kashkashian’s album, Kurtág/Ligeti: Music For Viola, won Best Classical Instrumental Solo.