Thursday (12/1) on the NPR blog Deceptive Cadence, Anastasia Tsioulcas writes, “Grammy categories were whittled down substantially for 2012, and with the announcement last night of this year’s nominees, we can see the results of those changes. Among the deletions were Best Classical Crossover Album, merged vocal and chamber/small group music categories and—most importantly—the dissolution of the Best Classical Album category. The drop of 31 categories overall, which was made without a general vote by the academy’s 21,000 members—and which prompted a lawsuit filed by four prominent Latin jazz musicians as well as the formation of a watchdog group—has diminished the presence and perceived value of specialty genres like classical music. … Among the 35 classical-category nominees (excluding Engineering and Producer of the Year, Classical), 19—more than half—came from Naxos and its distribution roster. (A bit of historical number-crunching: Last year, 24 out of 55 nominated recordings came from the same Naxos well.) And as in recent years, several of the nominated recordings aren’t available on CD at all—for example, the Gustavo Dudamel-led Brahms Fourth Symphony, nominated for Best Orchestral Performance, is sold as a digital download only, while three of the five albums in contention for Best Opera Recording are DVDs.” The Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra also got a Best Orchestral Performance nod, and New York Philharmonic Principal Percussionist Christopher Lamb’s recording of Schwanter’s Percussion Concerto with the Nashville Symphony was nominated for Best Classical Instrumental Solo. A complete list of nominees is available on the Grammy website.
Posted December 2, 2011
