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When Grammy nominees are also friends: chatting with Elaine Martone & Erica Brenner

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by Mike Telin

This year’s Grammy Awards recognize the best recordings, compositions, and artists from September 16, 2023, to August 30, 2024, as chosen by the members of the Recording Academy.

While Cleveland artists have been well-represented at the Grammys for some time, when the 67th award ceremony is held at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on February 2 and broadcast at 8 pm EST on CBS, there will be two special reasons to pay attention.

Elaine Martone (left) and Erica Brenner (right), who have been among past Grammy nominees and winners, have both been nominated this time around for Producer of the Year, Classical (Category 82).

[Read more…]

Kondonassis & Azica Records are among  2020 Grammy Award Nominees  

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by Mike Telin

Yesterday the Recording Academy announced that Cleveland-based Azica Records’ release of Jennifer Higdon’s Harp Concerto performed by Yolanda Kondonassis and the Rochester Philharmonic, conducted by Ward Stare, had received a Grammy nomination in the Best Classical Instrumental Solo category. The recording on the album American Rapture was produced and mixed by Alan Bise, and engineered by Bruce Egre. Commissioned by Kondonassis, Higdon’s concerto was also nominated for Best Contemporary Classical Composition.

“This nomination is always such a huge honor with all the amazing talent out there. To be in this small group is humbling and I’m thrilled beyond belief,” Kondonassis said in an email. “Enormous thanks go to Jennifer Higdon, Ward Stare, The Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, Alan Bise, Bruce Egre, and Azica Records. These projects are never easy, but what an amazing team to make it all happen!” [Read more…]

Sulayman, Sorrell & Apollo’s Fire win Grammy for Songs of Orpheus

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by Daniel Hathaway

Apollo’s Fire was among the Grammy winners for classical music announced in Los Angeles on February 10. The award in the Best Solo Vocal Album category was given for the ensemble’s Avie recording, Songs of Orpheus, featuring tenor Karim Sulayman. Conductor Jeannette Sorrell led an ensemble that included Julie Andrijeski, Johanna Novom, Karina Schmitz, René Schiffer, Rebecca Landell Reed, William Simms, and Brian Kay.

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Northeast Ohio Grammy Nominees, Part II: a continued conversation with Bruce Egre and Alan Bise of Azica Records

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by Mike Telin

Egre-BiseOn Sunday, February 8, the 57th Grammy Awards will be presented in Los Angeles. ClevelandClassical.com wishes the best of luck to all the Northeast Ohio nominees.

Today we continue our discussion with Azica Records founder and recording engineer Bruce Egre (left) and classical music producer Alan Bise (right). Following an informative conversation about guitarist Jason Vieaux’s Grammy-nominated album Play, on Azica, and the nominating process, the topic turned to the ever-evolving recording industry.

I began by asking Egre and Bise to comment on the belief held by many: that the classical music recording industry is on its way to extinction. “No, I don’t think it’s dead and it won’t die. People are simply consuming the music differently, like streaming,” Bruce Egre commented. He added that while streaming is good for the consumer, in financial terms it’s not necessarily good for the artist or the label. [Read more…]

Northeast Ohio Grammy nominees, Part I: Jason Vieaux up for Best Classical Instrumental Solo

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by Mike Telin

Vieaux-Play-CDGuitarist Jason Vieaux’s solo album, Play, is among the five 2015 Grammy Award nominees in the category of Best Classical Instrumental Solo. The awards ceremony will take place on February 8 at Los Angeles’s Staples Center.

The album, released in January 2014 by Cleveland’s Azica Records, includes showpieces by Barrios, Sagreras, Bustamante, and Sainz De La Maza, as well as Tárrega’s Recuerdos de la Alhambra and Capricho Arabe, Vieaux’s own arrangement of Duke Ellington’s In A Sentimental Mood, and Andrew York’s Sunburst, which had “Encores” as its original working title.

“The album is a culmination of Jason’s twenty years as a touring artist, a retrospective of encores,” Azica’s Bruce Egre, who engineered the recording, said in a recent conversation. “It took us months to figure out the title,” said producer Alan Bise. “We wanted it to say something interesting without becoming cheesy.”

How much does a title really matter these days? “That’s a good question,” Egre said. “With so much product coming out, especially in the classical world, you need to put something out there that is a little bit distinctive. What do you call an album of Haydn string quartets?” They settled on Play, and Egre admitted that the title has grown on him. [Read more…]

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