Grammy Awards
Nominations for the 2023 Grammy Awards were announced last week

Three months ahead of the 2023 Grammy Awards, not all is quiet on the Recording Academy front, far from it. In the past few days, 2023 nominations were announced, and the 2022 Latin Grammys were awarded.

The Latin Grammys provided some major financial news about where the global genre is and where it’s headed. Music Business Worldwide and other sources are confidently predicting that the recorded music market for Latin artists in the U.S. will generate more than a billion dollars in revenue in 2022.

The prediction is based on $886 million in Latin music retail revenues in 2021, with a recent 20% revenue increase year to year, and Latin music’s growth is also outpacing that of the wider U.S. recorded music market, which is predicted to generate $15 billion in 2022.

Angela Álvarez
Miss Angela is a 2021 documentary about composer and singer (and now Latin Grammy winner) Angela Álvarez

At the Latin awards, the amazing story of the night was in the category of Best New Artist, the title shared (with Silvana Estrada) by 95-year-old Angela Álvarez, the Cuban American composer/singer, whose songs were recorded last year on a self-titled album with the assistance of Andy García.

“To those who have yet to make their dreams come true, know that although life is hard, there’s always a way out, and with faith and love everything can be achieved,” Álvarez said at the awards ceremony.

She has written around 50 songs, including “Romper el Yugo” (Break the chains), “Añoranzas” (Yearnings), “Mi Gran Amor” (My great love), and “Camino Sin Rumbo” (I wander aimlessly).

Álvarez, who lives in Baton Rouge, La., is the grandmother of nine — including Carlos José Alvarez, a Los Angeles-based composer and producer, who brought her to attention — and the great-grandmother of “about 15,” according to reports.

Top winners at the Latin Grammys included Rosalía for Album of the Year, Tocarte for Song of the Year and Record of the Year, Marco Antonio Solís as Person of the Year, and Rita Lee and Amanda Miguel with lifetime achievement awards. René Pérez Joglar “Residente” has won the most Latin Grammy Awards of all time — a total of 28 as of 2022.

With the announcement of the nominations for the 2023 Grammy Awards, let’s look at the small section for classical recordings. Strangely enough, although there are only a dozen classical-music categories among the Grammys’ 91, and they don’t get the headlines, Wagner specialist and conductor Georg Solti, who died in 1997, still holds the record for the most Grammys ever, with 31 awards. During his career, Solti was nominated 74 times.

Georg Solti and Beyoncé
Georg Solti and Beyoncé with some of their awards

Until just three years ago, producer Quincy Jones and bluegrass singer Alison Krauss were the only non-classical recording artists behind Solti, while Pierre Boulez, Vladimir Horowitz, and John Williams stayed on top. As of now, Beyoncé, Chick Corea, and Jay-Z are approaching Solti’s 31 awards. Beyoncé has nine nominations for 2023, and with three wins, she would equal Solti’s record.

Classical Grammy nominees for 2023, announced last week, include:

Best Engineered Album, Classical

Bates: Philharmonia Fantastique — The Making of the Orchestra, Edwin Outwater, Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Beethoven: Symphony No. 6; Stucky: Silent Spring, Manfred Honeck, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra
Perspectives, Third Coast Percussion
Tuvayhun — Beatitudes for a Wounded World, Anita Brevik, Nidarosdomens jentekor, Trondheimsolistene
Williams: Violin Concerto No. 2 & Selected Film Themes, Anne-Sophie Mutter, John Williams, Boston Symphony Orchestra

Producer of the Year, Classical

— Jonathan Allen
— Christoph Franke
— James Ginsburg
— Elaine Martone
— Judith Sherman

Best Orchestral Performance

Adams, John Luther: Sila — The Breath of the World, Doug Perkins, University of Michigan Department of Chamber Music, University of Michigan Percussion Ensemble
Dvořák: Symphonies Nos. 7–9, Gustavo Dudamel, Los Angeles Philharmonic
Eastman: Stay on It, Christopher Rountree, Wild Up
John Williams — The Berlin Concert, John Williams, Berliner Philharmoniker
Works by Florence Price, Jessie Montgomery, Valerie Coleman, Michael Repper, New York Youth Symphony

Best Opera Recording

Aucoin: Eurydice, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus
Blanchard: Fire Shut Up in My Bones, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus
Davis: X — The Life and Times of Malcolm X, Gil Rose, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Odyssey Opera Chorus

Best Choral Performance

Bach: St. John Passion, John Eliot Gardiner, English Baroque Soloists, Monteverdi Choir
Born, Donald Nally, The Crossing
Verdi: Requiem — The Met Remembers 9/11, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus

Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance

Beethoven: Complete String Quartets, Volume 2 — The Middle Quartets, Dover Quartet
Musical Remembrances, Neave Trio
Perspectives, Third Coast Percussion
Shaw: Evergreen, Attacca Quartet
What Is American, PUBLIQuartet

Best Classical Instrumental Solo

Abels: Isolation Variation, Hilary Hahn
Bach: The Art of Life, Daniil Trifonov
Beethoven: Diabelli Variations, Mitsuko Uchida
Letters for the Future, Time for Three, Xian Zhang, Philadelphia Orchestra
A Night in Upper Town — The Music of Zoran Krajacic, Mak Grgić 

Best Classical Solo Vocal Album

Eden, Joyce DiDonato (soloist), Maxim Emelyanychev, Il Pomo D’Oro
How Do I Find You, Sasha Cooke (soloist), Kirill Kuzmin
Okpebholo: Lord, How Come Me Here? Will Liverman (soloist), J’Nai Bridges, Caen Thomason-Redus, Paul Sánchez
Stranger — Works for Tenor by Nico Muhly, Nicholas Phan (soloist), Eric Jacobson, Brooklyn Rider, The Knights
Voice of Nature — The Anthropocene, Renée Fleming (soloist), Yannick Nézet-Séguin

Best Classical Compendium

An Adoption Story, Starr Parodi and Kitt Wakeley; Jeff Fair, Starr Parodi and Kitt Wakeley (producers)
Aspire, JP Jofre and Seunghee Lee; Enrico Fagone (conductor); Jonathan Allen (producer)
A Concert for Ukraine, Yannick Nézet-Séguin (conductor); David Frost (producer)
The Lost Birds, Voces8; Barnaby Smith and Christopher Tin (conductors); Sean Patrick Flahaven and Christopher Tin (producers)

Best Contemporary Classical Composition

Akiho: Ligneous Suite, Andy Akiho (composer), Ian Rosenbaum, Dover Quartet
Bermel: Intonations, Derek Bermel (composer), JACK Quartet
Gubaidulina: The Wrath of God, Sofia Gubaidulina (composer), Andris Nelsons, Gewandhausorchester
Puts: Contact, Kevin Puts (composer), Xian Zhang, Time for Three, Philadelphia Orchestra
Simon: Requiem for the Enslaved, Carlos Simon (composer), MK Zulu, Marco Pavé, Hub New Music