This Week in Classical Music

February 15, 2009

Phoenix Chorale's Latest Grammy Winner

( Phoenix, AZ )
•Grammys include PHX group
• Gramophone launches online archive
•Anna Nicole Smith Opera

This Week in Classical Music 2-15-09

It’s This Week in Classical Music, an update on what’s happening in the classical music world; I’m Randy Kinkel.

The Grammy awards were given out last week, and here are some of the classical winners:

Best Classical album & Best Opera Recording: Kurt Weill: Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, James Conlon conducting,

Best Orchestral performance went to The Chicago Symphony and Bernard Haitink for Shostakovich’s Symphony #4;

Hilary Hahn won best instrumental soloist with orchestra for her recording of Schoenberg and Sibelius Violin Concertos;

Best small ensemble performance went to our own Charles Bruffy and the Phoenix Chorale for their CD “Spotless Rose”. Congratulations on your second Grammy; we are very proud of you!

The classical music magazine “Gramophone” has launched its online archive, a searchable database containing every issue from 1923 to the latest issue. Each page is viewable as a digital image of the original alongside a plain text extraction that can be pasted out of the viewing box. The archive is free to everyone except for the current issue. Go to www.grammophone.net.

The life of model/actress Anna Nicole Smith is about to become an opera. Composer Mark-Anthony Turnage is writing the music and Richard Thomas is writing the libretto. The opera is to be staged at Covent Garden in 2011. Elaine Padmore, Covent Garden's director of opera said, "It is not going to be tawdry; it is going to be witty, clever, thoughtful and sad.
For more on these and other items and events, go to the website, kbaq.org; be listening each week at this time for another update; and join me every weekday for The Mozart Buffet, an hour of music by Mozart and his contemporaries. I’m Randy Kinkel, for this week in classical music on 89-five KBAQ phoenix, a service of Rio Salado College and Arizona State University.