Artists and producers from Naxos and its distributed labels were honoured with five Grammy Awards at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards from Los Angeles.

Composer Robert Aldridge and librettist Herschel Garfein's opera Elmer Gantry won Best Contemporary Classical Composition. This Naxos recording with the Florentine Opera Chorus and Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra also won Best Engineered Album, Classical (Byeong-Joon Hwang & John Newton, engineers; Jesse Lewis, mastering engineer). The New York Times called Elmer Gantry "...an unabashedly populist piece. The music is kinetic, vividly scored and steeped in American vernacular idiom; the storytelling is urgent."

Naxos artists, percussionist Christopher Lamb and conductor Giancarlo Guerrero also won the Best Classical Instrumental Solo Grammy for their Naxos recording of Joseph Schwantner's Concerto for Percussion & Orchestra, with the Nashville Symphony conducted by Giancarlo Guerrero. Maestro Guerrero is now in his third season as Music Director of the Nashville Symphony. Since 1985 Christopher Lamb has been Principal Percussionist of the New York Philharmonic.

Steven Mackey, tenor Rinde Eckert and Eighth Blackbird won Best Small Ensemble Performance for their recording on the Cedille label of Lonely Motel - Music from Slide featuring music by Steven Mackey. Of his own composing Mackey wrote: “... the daily act of exploration and discovery is as important to me as the finished product. Of course, composing is no fun at all if you don’t love what you are creating.”

Producer Judith Sherman won Producer of the Year, Classical for six different recordings on Cedille (Capricho Latino, Notable Women, The Soviet Experience, Vol. 1, Winging It), Sono Luminus (85th Birthday Celebration, Claude Frank) and Innova (Speak!), all distributed by Naxos. Judith Sherman is a ten-time Grammy Award nominee, and is now a three-time winner.

Jim Selby, CEO of Naxos of America said: “My congratulations to the artists, engineers and producers involved in these projects. It is their dedication and creative genius that makes the music business so exciting and rewarding.”

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Raymond Bisha
Naxos Director of Media Relations, North America