SOUNDMIRROR NEWS

It's called "Music's Biggest Night" for a reason: the 50th Grammy Awards filled the Staples Center in Los Angeles with more musical and technical talent than we've ever seen in one place. Soundmirror's clients and partners had a very good year, with our projects together securing eight Grammy nominations. The Boston Symphony was well-represented, with its Nonesuch CD of Peter Lieberson's Neruda Songs earning three nominations: Best Classical Album, Best Vocal Performance for Peter's late wife Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, and Best Contemporary Classical Composition. When the votes were tallied, the Grammy went to Lorraine posthumously for what turned out to be her final recording. She is deeply missed.

Surpassing even the BSO's three nominations was the surprise leader in classical Grammy nominations this year, the Chandos hybrid SACD of Grechaninov's Passion Week, a joint project of the Phoenix Bach Choir and the Kansas City Chorale , conducted by Charles Bruffy. This disc earned four nominations: Best Classical Album, Best Surround Album, Best Engineered Classical Album (for Soundmirror's chief engineer John Newton), and Best Choral Performance. The cheering from the choir was loud and clear when presenter Robert Aubrey Davis announced that John had won his first Grammy after three previous nominations.

The eighth nomination, for Soundmirror's Blanton Alspaugh as Classical Producer of the Year, recognized five recordings: from the Phoenix Bach Choir and the Kansas City Chorale not only the Grechaninov but also Eternal Rest, also on Chandos as a hybrid SACD; the Harrington String Quartet's Albany SACD of music by Daniel McCarthy; Glimmerglass Opera's Naxos CD of Stephen Hartke's The Greater Good, conducted by Stewart Robertson; and cellist Emmanuel Feldman's Albany SACD of music by Virgil Thomson and Charles Fussell.

The best thing about the Grammys is that they remind us of how lucky we are to work with so many wonderful musicians, as well as so many great colleagues on our side of the microphones. It was worth the trip just to catch up with folks we get to see only once or twice a year.

We were thrilled when our good friends at the Nashville Symphony won three Grammy awards, including Best Classical Album, for their Naxos CD of music by Joan Tower. Joan Tower was a big part of the first season of American Encores, which is the thirteen-week syndicated program we produce with the Nashville Symphony. It is distributed by the WFMT Radio Network, and the first season is already on the air. Other Nashville Symphony projects include Naxos CDs of Ravel's L'Enfant et les Sortileges and Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors. Both of these are in the final stages of post-production.

One of our recent productions with the Nashville Symphony won a regional Emmy in the Special Event Live category for One Symphony Place, which documented the opening night of Schermerhorn Center, new home of the NSO. Things never slow down for long with Charles Bruffy and his two choirs. Just out on Chandos (again a hybrid SACD) is a program of Rheinberger's sacred choral works. We recorded it in the splendid acoustics of the Camelback Bible Church in Paradise Valley, AZ in January and May of 2007.

Kansas City holds many attractions for us: the Kansas City Chorale, some of the best barbecue around, and the Kansas City Symphony. We've been recording each of their classical subscription programs for the archives as well as producing their local radio broadcasts on KCUR-FM. Soundmirror's Dirk Sobotka handles the engineering and editing, and Blanton hosts the programs. (A special tip of the hat to Dr. Richard E. Rodda, who supplies the excellent program notes.)

It's been years in the making, but will be available soon: the complete Beethoven piano sonatas, recorded in pure DSD and released as a hybrid SACD set, with Peter Tak_cs at the keyboard. Final post-production work is underway and the release by Cambria Records will be announced later this year.

How does another great choir follow up its first Grammy nomination? Our good friends Conspirare and Craig Hella Johnson got together with us at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall for a new hybrid SACD recording. They brought along an exciting young British composer named Tarik O'Regan as well as new label partner, Harmonia Mundi, with whom we have collaborated many times. Keep an eye out for this one!

We've been frequent guests of the Buffalo Philharmonic recently. In December we helped the orchestra and Music Director JoAnn Falletta record, replicate, and distribute a new Christmas CD in just one week. We've also worked with JoAnn and the orchestra on an all-Schubert program destined for release on Naxos.

We've also been working with Pentatone and the Pittsburgh Symphony as they continue the very exciting hybrid SACD series of Brahms symphonies with Marek Janowski. Soundmirror's Mark Donahue drove down with a kit and worked with our Pentatone colleagues in recording the second and third symphonies in November.

We always enjoy working in Texas: there's the Harrington String Quartet and the Amarillo Symphony; there's Conspirare in Austin; there's barbecue everywhere- and now we have a new reason: the Houston Chamber Choir. Music Director Robert Simpson and his singers put together a wonderful program of Russian secular music and invited us to record it in the beautiful Villa de Matel in Houston. Release information coming soon.

One of the most innovative and useful developments to come along in the choral field has been the visionary work of Rehearsal Arts. These practice aids are invaluable in helping volunteer singers learn their parts to the major works of the choral repertoire. Soundmirror hosts a steady stream of sessions to keep the titles coming, most recently Mendelssohn's Elijah and the Verdi Requiem. We're delighted to be in our fourth season recording all of James Levine's performances with the Boston Symphony. The Neruda Songs, recorded in November 2005, has just won a Grammy. Thirteen other pieces from the BSO archives were combined into a disc for UBS, one of the major sponsors of the orchestra, and inserted into 30,000 copies of the January 2008 issue of Boston magazine.

The BSO Chamber Players' new Mozart CD has garnered rave reviews, with others sure to follow.

One of our recent productions with the Nashville Symphony won a regional Emmy in the Special Event Live category for One Symphony Place, which documented the opening night of Schermerhorn Center, new home of the NSO.

TOP