The Houston Symphony has received a nomination for the 60th Grammy Awards for the recording of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck for Best Opera Recording in the classical category.
Hailed by Gramophone as “One of the finest Wozzecks on record, orchestrally speaking,” and by Fanfare as a “Terrifically imposing performance” under the direction of an “experienced and confident conductor,” the two-disc album features former Music Director Hans Graf (conductor/producer); Anne Schwanewilms & Roman Trekel (principal soloists); the Houston Symphony; and Chorus Of Students And Alumni, Shepherd School Of Music, Rice University & Houston Grand Opera Children’s Chorus.
“Büchner’s timeless, daring message of empathy and understanding along with Berg’s incredible music, emotional and precise, yielded perhaps the greatest opera of the 20th century,” said Graf. “The Houston Symphony’s performances show how it can be done in concert, staged lightly with great care and love – and with great impact.”
The album was also recently awarded the distinguished ECHO Klassik Award for Best Opera Recording (20th/21st Century Opera). Recorded during concerts at Jones Hall in 2013 by Brad Sayles, who now serves as the Houston Symphony’s recording engineer, the album was met with worldwide recognition upon its international release earlier this year on the Naxos label.
Other Houston Symphony recordings under the direction of current Music Director Andrés Orozco-Estrada include the critically acclaimed recordings of the last four symphonies of Dvořák on the Dutch label PENTATONE. Upcoming releases under PENTATONE include a Music of the Americas album (February 2018) featuring Gershwin, Revueltas, Piazzolla and Bernstein, followed by Haydn’s The Creation (May 2018).
View our Behind the Scenes of Wozzeck in Concert here.
Digital downloads and CDs are available through Amazon. The 60th Grammy Awards will take place in New York on January 28, 2018.
