Every GRAMMY nominee for "Best Opera Recording" featiures a barihunk

Edwin Crossley-Mercer, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Günther Groissböck, Edward Parks & Aubrey Allicock

Every GRAMMY nominee for  "Best Opera Recording" featiures a barihunk this year.

The nominees, which were announced today, are as follow:

• John Adams, Doctor Atomic, featuring barihunk Aubrey Allicock, Gerald Finley, Julia Bullock and Brindley Sherratt. 
• Mason Bates, The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, featuring barihunk Edward Parks, Sasha Cooke, Jessice E. Jones, Wei Wu and Garrett Sorenson. 
• Jean-Baptiste Lully, Alceste, featuring barihunks Edwin Crossley-Mercer and Douglas Williams, Emiliano Gonzalez, Toro and Judith Van Wanroij. 
• Richard Strauss, Der Rosenkavalier, featuring Günther Groissböck, Elīna Garanča and Erin Morley. 
• Giuseppe Verdi, Rigoletto, featuring the late barihunk Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Nadine Sierra. 

Bate's The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs was also nominated for "Best Contemporary Classical Composition" along with Jake Heggie's Great Scott, which features the ageless barihunk Nathan Gunn.  Other nominees in the category are Du Yun's Air Glow, Kernis' Violin Concerto and Mazzoli's Vespers for Violin.

LA Opera's Ghosts of Versailles wins 2 GRAMMY® Awards

Christopher Maltman as Beaumarchais

The Los Angeles Opera's critically-acclaimed recording of John Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles walked away with both GRAMMY® Awards that it was nominated for: "Best Opera Recording" and "Best Engineered Recording, Classical."

The cast includes two barihunks, led by Christopher Maltman’s Beaumarchais and Lucas Meachem as Figaro. The cast also includes Patricia Racette as Marie Antoinette, Renée Rapier, Guanqun Yu, Joshua Guerrero, Lucy Schaufer and conductor James Conlon and the LA Opera Chorus & Orchestra.

Also winning was classical music producer David Frost, whose many recording included Ildar Abdrazakov's recording of Shostakovich's Suite on Verses of Michelangelo Buonarroti.  

Barihunks dominate Grammy® nominees for "BEST OPERA RECORDING"

Luca Pisaroni, Mariusz Kwiecien and Lucas Meachem

The odds are pretty good that a barihunk will be placing a Grammy award on his shelf, since every recording that was nominated features at least one. The Grammy® Awards will be held on February 12, 2017 at 8:00 PM PST.

The nominees are:

John Corigliano: The Ghosts Of Versailles from the Los Angeles Opera conducted by James Conlon, featuring barihunks Christopher Maltman and Lucas Meachem along with Patricia Racette, Lucy Schaufer and Guanqun Yu.

George Freidrich Handel: Giulio Cesare with Il Giardino Armonico under the baton of Giovanni Antonini, featuring bass Ruben Drole,  Cecilia Bartoli, Philippe Jaroussky, Andreas Scholl and Anne-Sofie von Otter.

Jennifer Higdon: Cold Mountain from the Santa Fe Opera under the baton of Miguel Harth-Bedoya with barihunks Nathan Gunn and Kevin Burdette, joined by Isabel Leonard, Jay Hunter Morris and the Santa Fe Opera apprentice artists.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro performed by the Chamber Orchestra Of Europe and conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, featuring barihunks Thomas Hampson and Luca Pisaroni, joined by Christiane Karg and Sonya Yoncheva.

Karol Szymanowski: Król Roger at the Royal Opera House conducted by Antonio Pappano, featuring barihunk Mariusz Kwiecień, Saimir Pirgu and Georgia Jarman.

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Dan Kempson & Sidney Outlaw nominated for Grammy Award

Dan Kempson and Naxos' L'Orestie d'Eschyle

Darius Milhaud's trilogy L'Orestie d'Eschyle on the Naxos label has been nominated for Best Opera Recording by the GRAMMY Awards. The recording features two singing who have appeared regularly on this site, Dan Kempson in the critical role of Orestes and Sidney Outlaw sang Apollo. The recording features the University of Michigan Choirs and Symphony Orchestra and required 350 musicians.

Part of the great French musical tradition and a member of Les Six, Darius Milhaud was an important avant-garde figure in early 20th-century Paris. The Oresteia of Aeschylus trilogy arose from his lifelong interest in Greek mythology and drama, inspired by the expressive, syncopated rhythms of Paul Claudel’s poetic texts. The trilogy consists of Agamemnon, Op. 14, Les choephores, Op. 24 and Les eumenides, Op. 41.

Sidney Outlaw

In addition to innovative rhythmic elements, the trilogy exhibits complex harmonic techniques, particularly polytonality, which Milhaud believed gave him more varied ways of expressing sweetness in addition to violence.

The 57th Annual GRAMMY Awards telecast will be held on Sunday, Feb. 8, 2015.

Dan Kempson will be singing the role of Stanley in Previn's A Streetcar Named Desire for Townsend Opera on February 15 and with Fresno Grand Opera on February 15.  Sidney Outlaw will perform Handel's Messiah with the Oratorio Society of New York City at Carnegie Hall on Saturday, December 20th.

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Barihunks Simon Keenlyside and Chris Herbert nominated for Grammy Awards

Simon Keenlyside (L) and Christopher Dylan Herbert (R)

In case you missed the Grammy Award nominations on Friday or managed to overlook the Opera/Classical/Choral categories in all of the clutter around Jay Z with his nine nominations or Kendrick Lamar, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Pharrell and Justin Timberlake with their seven nominations a piece, we have some nominations of interest.  

In the "Best Opera Recording" category, barihunk Simon Keenlyside was part of the cast on Thomas Adès' The Tempest recorded at the Metropolitan Opera, which also includes mezzo Isabel Leonard, soprano Audrey Luna and tenor Alan Oke.   

Also nominated was a recording of Britten's The Rape Of Lucretia, an opera that we feature regularly due to great barihunk casting opportunities.  This performance is conducted by Oliver Knussen and features tenor Ian Bostridge, baritone Peter Coleman-Wright and sopranos Susan Gritton and Angelika Kirchschlager. 

 

New York Polyphony, which features barihunk Chris Herbert as part of its quartet was nominated for "Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance" for their glorious CD Times Go By Turns. If you don't own this, buy it today. 

 

Also nominated was our Honorary Barihunk and MezzoSexual diva Joyce DiDonato for "Best Classical Vocal Solo" for Drama Queens featuring ll Complesso Barocco under Alan Curtis.

The Recording Academy announced the nominations Friday during a concert at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles. The 56th Grammy Awards will be held on Jan. 26 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Click HERE for a complete list of nominations. 

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