Of this year’s orchestra nominations, the Pittsburgh Symphony and Music Director Manfred Honeck’s for Dvorak: Symphony No. 8 / Janacek; Symphonic Suite from Jenufa was released by the Bay Area’s most fêted audiophile-quality label, Reference Recordings. Berkeley composer John Adams’ music is once again eligible for an award (Best Orchestral Performance), this time for the recording of his City Noir by the St. Louis Symphony with Music Director David Robertson conducting. The Seattle Symphony, under new Music Director Ludovic Morlot, scored another Best Orchestral Performance award, the first nomination on its own label, for music of Henri Dutilleux, and Bay Area composer Mason Bates' music was honored with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the Best Engineered Classical Album category. The highly esteemed, financially challenged Atlanta Symphony got a nod in the Best Orchestral Performance category for Best Orchestral Peformance.
The other major development to note is the continued rise of the independents. In all classical and classical-related categories, the major labels (UMG labels, including ECM New Series and Nonesuch, Sony, Warner/Erato, and Naxos) together picked up only 10 nominations out of a possible 50 (or 10 out of 55 if you add in the Classical Producer of the Year Nominations, and the labels with which they are associated.)
The winners of the 57th Grammy Awards will be broadcast live on February 8, 2015 on CBS TV on 8 p.m. Pacific time. Many of the classical award winners will have been announced before the telecast begins. By the time the West Coast views the awards on TV, most of the winners will have been announced.