Look at all the Kansas City musicians who were just nominated for Grammy Awards, again
Another year, another pile of Grammy nominations for musicians with Kansas City ties.
▪ Leading the pack is Charles Bruffy and the Kansas City Chorale for their “Requiem for Fallen Brothers” by Russian composer Alexander Kastalsky. The album is up for two Grammys: best choral performance and classical producer of the year (for frequent Chorale collaborator Blanton Alspaugh).
Patrick Neas, The Star’s classical music columnist, called the album “a stunner.”
The recording also features the Cathedral Choral Society, the Clarion Choir, the Saint Tikhon Choir and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s conducted by Leonard Slatkin. It was recorded in 2018 in the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., its first performance of the work since its 1917 premiere in St. Petersburg.
Grammy Awards have gone to other KC Chorale/Alspaugh collaborations: “Artifacts: The Music of Michael McGlynn,” which won the producer award earlier this year, and the 2012 album “Life and Breath.”
▪ Michael Stern and the Kansas City Symphony’s recording of Gustav Holst’s “The Planets” and “The Perfect Fool” also nabbed a producer of the year nod, for David Frost.
Said Neas: “‘The Planets’ is one of the most recorded pieces of classical music, so what makes Michael Stern and the Kansas City Symphony’s new recording of the work so special? The performance is as good as any you’re likely to hear, but this recording is a standout for the stunning sound captured by Keith O. “Professor” Johnson, the legendary producer for Reference Recordings.”
The symphony won in 2011 for another David Frost collaboration, “Britten’s Orchestra.”
▪ And Grammy perennial Joyce DiDonato, the international opera star who grew up in Prairie Village, is nominated for best opera recording for Handel: “Agrippina.” This is a studio recording from last year, and a review in Presto Classical said DiDonato is “completely inside the role, whether eating spineless courtiers for breakfast, tearing a strip off her hapless offspring, or unravelling à la Lady Macbeth.”
Earlier this year, the mezzo-soprano won for best classical solo vocal album for “Songplay.”
▪ In the jazz world, guitarist Pat Metheny, who grew up in Lee’s Summit, was nominated for best arrangement for instruments and vocals for the album “From This Place.” An appreciative NPR said Metheny is “pushing forward, still seeking breathtakingly new vistas.” Metheny is a multiple Grammy winner, most recently in 2012.
▪ And Kansas Citian Logan Richardson plays his alto saxophone on Gerald Clayton’s “Happening: Live at the Village Vanguard,” which is up for best jazz instrumental album. In last year’s nominations, he played on a track of Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah’s “Ancestral Recall,” which was up for best contemporary instrumental album.
The Grammy Awards will be presented Jan. 31 on CBS.
This story was originally published November 24, 2020 at 6:38 PM.
