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GRAMMYs Wide Sweep

Janos Gereben on February 12, 2013
The John Adams recording won Best Orchestral Performance
The John Adams recording won Best Orchestral Performance

Neglected as classical music is at the GRAMMYs, at least as far as the show is concerned, that's what we'll focus on here; if you missed the telecast on Sunday, read about the awards here.

On top: The Brooklyn trio Fun won the award for best new artist and their song We Are Young won Song of the Year. Somebody That I Used to Know, by Gotye, featuring Kimbra, won Record of the Year, while the British folk-rockers Mumford & Sons Babel won Album of the Year.

The local-interest lead, of course, is the San Francisco Symphony’s 15th GRAMMY award, this time the MTT/SFS recording of John Adams' Harmonielehre and Short Ride in a Fast Machine from the orchestra's 2012 American Mavericks festival and tour. The category is Best Orchestral Performance.

This is the eighth award for a recording on the orchestra's own SFS Media label, following seven GRAMMYs for the recent recording cycle of works by Gustav Mahler. Among other winners of interest:

- Look at these names among the Best Folk Album winners: Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer, and Chris Thile for The Goat Rodeo Sessions (also winning Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical).

Gotye: Record of the Year
Gotye: Record of the Year

- In the Best Musical Theater Album category, unexpectedly (at least to me) the Glen Hansard-Marketa Irglova Once: A New Musical beat out the new Broadway productions of Sondheim's Follies (Elaine Paige, Bernadette Peters, Danny Burstein, Jan Maxwell) and The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess with Audra McDonald.

- Righteously so, Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris won the Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media.

- Somewhat less justified, but acceptable, is the victory of the Trent Reznor-Atticus Ross score for The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo in the Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media.

- Chick Corea's Mozart Goes Dancing won Best Instrumental Composition (over the Chris and Dave Brubeck Music of Ansel Adams: America).

- Life & Breath, choral works by René Clausen, won Best Choral Performance for the Kansas City Chorale, conducted by Charles Bruffy; also Best Engineered Album, Classical.

- Conductor Antoni Wit, producers Aleksandra Nagórko and Andrzej Sasin, for Penderecki's Fonogrammi, Horn Concerto, The Awakening of Jacob, others.

- eighth blackbird won Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance for Meanwhile; the fourth GRAMMY for the ensemble.

- Stephen Hartke won Best Contemporary Classical Composition for the same album for his composition Meanwhile — Incidental Music to Imaginary Puppet Plays.

- Kim Kashkashian’s album, Kurtág/Ligeti: Music For Viola, won Best Classical Instrumental Solo.