Tag: ravel

Grammy-nominated blogger

The Grammy nominations for 2009 are out, and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus is on the list (along with Beyoncé and Lady Gaga, of course). Our recording of Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloe with the BSO under James Levine got the nod.

I was kind of hoping that our Brahms Requiem recording would be nominated–it’s certainly a more prominent chorus role, and I think it’s one of the best recordings available of the work. But I’m not complaining.

The only question is: do I put “Grammy nominated” on my resumé now? (Of course not, but it’s fun to contemplate.)

Update: I would be doing my BSO colleagues a disservice if I didn’t note that the album is also up for Best Engineered Classical Album and Best Orchestral Performance.

BSO Classics: the BSO goes private label

The BSO announced yesterday that it was kicking off a series of recordings on its own BSO Classics label. I’m on three out of the four initial recordings as a member of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus: the Brahms Requiem, Bolcom Symphony No. 8, and Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé. The recordings are available at the BSO’s download store now and will be on iTunes and other services next month.

As any observer of the classical music portion of the recording industry knows, it’s a rough time for classical recordings. The bigs aren’t doing much symphonic music any more, partly owing to fees owed to players unions (though some, like Philadelphia, appear to be working around that with revenue sharing agreements).

So the prospect of an orchestra entirely self-releasing its own material is interesting, to say the least. It will be interesting to see which way the BSO’s hedged bet on digital only releases (two of the recordings are also available on CD) will go.