The 50th annual Grammy Awards have brought repeat nominations for several Eastman School of Music faculty and alumnae.
The Ying Quartet, the School’s string quartet-in-residence, is up for Best Chamber Music Performance for its album Tchaikovsky: Three String Quartets, Souvenir De Florence. The album’s producer, Judith Sherman, was nominated for Classical Producer of the Year. The Ying Quartet, comprised of siblings Janet and Timothy, violin, David, cello, and Phillip, viola, received a 2006 Grammy Award for Best Classical Crossover Album for its work with the Turtle Island String Quartet on the album 4 + Four.
Professor of Lute Paul O’ Dette, who won a Grammy in 1996 for a CD of Purcell songs with Sylvia McNair, was nominated for Best Opera Recording for Lully: Thésée. O’Dette also received Grammy nominations two years ago for conducting Conradi’s Ariadne and last year for his solo lute CD Bacheler: The Bacheler’s Delight.
Renée Fleming (MM ’83) received two nominations, in the Best Classical Album and the Best Classical Vocal Performance categories, for Homage: The Age of the Diva. Fleming has been nominated eight times and won Grammies for her albums The Beautiful Voice and Bel Canto.
Maria Schneider (MM ’85) is up for the Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album Grammy for Sky Blue and also for Best Instrumental Composition for her work “Cerulean Skies.” Schneider won a Grammy in 2005 for Concert in the Garden and was nominated for a 2006 Grammy for her composition Journey Home.
Another Eastman alumna, Kayo Miki (BM ’94, MM ’96), is a violinist with Quartet San Francisco, which received a Grammy nomination for Best Classical Crossover CD for its album Whirled Chamber Music.
In addition, the album recording of The Greater Good, a work commissioned by the Eastman School’s Hanson Institute for American Music, is one of the works bringing Blanton Alspaugh a Classical Producer of the Year nomination. The opera was written by Stephen Hartke and received its world premiere at Glimmerglass Opera.
The 50th annual Grammy Awards will be presented Feb. 10 in Los Angeles.
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