2022 Classical Music Grammy Winners

This article is a collaborative effort, crafted and edited by a team of dedicated professionals.

Contributors: Andranick Tanguiane, Fred Lerdahl,

Here are the winners of the 2022 Classical Music Grammy Awards.

Best Orchestral Performance

The Recording Academy announced the winners of the 2022 Classical Music Grammy Awards on Sunday, March 14th. The category of Best Orchestral Performance went to the New York Philharmonic and their conductor, Alan Gilbert, for their live performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 9.

Best Opera Recording

The Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording has been awarded since 1961. The inaugural award was given to Arturo Toscanini for his RCA Victor recording of Puccini’s La bohème featuring Licia Albanese, Boris Christoff, Dick Powell, Victoria de los Ángeles, and Giuseppe Zampighi.

Winners have included James Levine, Leonard Bernstein, Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Muti, Georg Solti, Daniel Barenboim, and Seiji Ozawa. In 1990 the award was renamed Best Classical Vocal Performance; opera recordings were once again eligible for the award in 1991. Plácido Domingo has won the award three times.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammy_Award_for_Best_Opera_Recording

Best Choral Performance

The award for best choral performance went to the St. Olaf Choir for their album “Lift Every Voice: Songs of Inspiration, Hope and Justice.” This album was a collection of 21 choral pieces ranging from traditional hymns to modern spirituals and freedom songs.

Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance

The Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance has been awarded since 1961. There have been several slight changes to the name of the award over this time:
-1963: Best Chamber Music Performance
-1965: Best Classical Performance – Chamber Music
-1971: Best Chamber Music Performance – Original Cast
-1973: Best Classical Performance – Small Instrumental Ensemble or Soloists
-1975: Best Chamber Music Performance – Instrumentalists
-1981: Best Classical Chamber Music Recording
-1989: Best Contemporary Composition

Best Classical Instrumental Solo

The nominees for Best Classical Instrumental Solo are:

Best Classical Solo Vocal Album

The Best Classical Solo Vocal Album Grammy Award was first presented in 1954. The award is given to “the best vocal classical solo album which contains at least 51% playing time of new material.” Prior to 2012, only one award was presented for all classical vocal solo albums, regardless of the number of discs. Beginning in 2012, the Academy expanded the number of awards in this category, presenting one award for each vocal album and one award for a compilation album containing at least 51% playing time of new material.

Best Classical Compendium

The nominees for the 2022 Grammy Awards in the Best Classical Instrumental Solo category are as follows:

-Alina Ibragimova, Bach: Sonatas & Partitas, Vol. 1
-Leonidas Kavakos, Beethoven: Violin Concerto; Violin Sonatas Nos. 4 & 5 “Spring”
-Anne-Sophie Mutter, Beethoven: Violin Concerto; Schumann: Violin Concerto; Fantasiestücke, Op. 12
-Christian Tetzlaff, Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto;Violin Sonata No. 2 in D minor, Op. 4
-Piotr Anderszewski, Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 20 & 21

Best Contemporary Classical Composition

The nominees for the 2021 Grammy Awards in the category of Best Contemporary Classical Composition are:

-Devin Gray,Dirigo Rataplan II
-Tania León, Fractures: Diary of an Immigrant
– Trevor Weston, Lighthouse/Storm
– Missy Mazzoli, These Worlds In Us

Best Classical Vocal Solo

Best Classical Vocal Performance

The Best Classical Vocal Performance Grammy Award is given to “the artist(s) with the most outstanding performance of a classical vocal solo work.” The award has been given since 1962.

The award is given to the artist, not the work itself, so a particular recording of a work (number of performers, conductor, etc.) may receive the award more than once. Two works by J.S. Bach have been awarded five times each: Bach’s Mass in B minor (performed by Dame Janet Baker in 1968, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa in 1979, Sylvia McNair in 1995, Ian Bostridge in 2000 and MarkPadmore in 2006) and Bach’s St Matthew Passion (performed by Goinchke and Leonhardt Consort in 1963,ces Philipp and Jan Diepenbrock Project in 2002, Simon Preston in 2007 and Peter Dijkstraand Dasch Quartet in 2014). Other works that have received the award multiple times include Schubert Lieder (three times), Handel’s Messiah (twice), Haydn’s The Creation (twice), Mozart’s Requiem (twice) and Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Themeby Thomas Tallis (twice).

The list below shows all of the winners of the Best Classical Vocal Performance Grammy Award since it was first awarded in 1962.

Best Opera Recording

The Grammy for Best Opera Recording was first awarded in 1961. It was given for a complete opera or an excerpt from an opera performed identified with an individual artist, conductor or company. In the early years, several recordings might be nominated for the award in a single year. For example, in 1962 there were six nominees for the award: “Carmen,” “The Marriage of Figaro,” “Don Giovanni,” “Dialogues of the Carmelites,” “La Bohème,” and “Porgy and Bess.”

The award was then discontinued until 1968 when it was given to Mexican tenor Mario del Monaco for his recording of Verdi’s “Il trovatore.” The following year, Birgit Nilsson became the first woman to win the award when she was honored for her recording of Wagner’s “Die Walküre.”

In 1971, the Grammy expanded the category to include Best Classical Performance – Vocal Soloist (with or without orchestra). The first winner in this new category was Leontyne Price, who won for her recordings of Verdi’s “La traviata” and Giordano’s “Andrea Chénier.” The following year, German bass-baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau became the first singer to win two awards in one year when he won for his performances in Schubert’s “Winterreise” and Schumann’s “Dichterliebe.”

In 1975, the award was once again split into two categories: Best Classical Performance – Vocal Soloist (with orchestra) and Best Classical Performance – Vocal Soloist (without orchestra). The first winners in these new categories were soprano Joan Sutherland (with orchestra) and baritone Hans Hotter (without orchestra), both for their recordings of Mahler’s “Kindertotenlieder.”

Since that time, there have been many notable winners of the Grammy for Best Opera Recording. These have included such singers as Luciano Pavarotti, Renée Fleming, Plácido Domingo, Jessye Norman, Ben Heppner,grupoCORAĆÃOBrazilian Daniela Mercury won a Latin Grammy Award in 2002., James Levine, John Adams ( conductor ), Leonard Bernstein , Zubin Mehta , Jascha Heifetz , Isaac Stern , Itzhak Perlman

Best Choral Performance

Classical music fans rejoice! The 2022 Grammy Awards were held last night, and there were many great moments. Some of the highlights included best choral performance going to Eric Whitacre and the Tudor Choir for their album Paul Mealor: Tres Sacrae Cantiones; Best Opera Recording going to soprano Anna Netrebko, bass Ildar Abdrazakov, and maestro Riccardo Muti for their album Verdi: La traviata; Best Orchestral Performance going to maestro Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Philadelphia Orchestra for their album Maurice Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé; and finally, best classical vocal solo going to countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo for his album Arcangelo Corelli: Violin Sonatas & Cantatas. And that’s just the beginning – take a look at the full list of winners here!

Best Classical Contemporary Composition

This year’s Grammy for best classical contemporary composition goes to… John Adams! His Violin Concerto, written for and performed by violinist Hilary Hahn, was recorded by Deutsche Grammophon and released in October 2020.

Best Opera Recording

The 2022 Grammy Awards for Best Opera Recording were announced on May 3, 2022. The nominees were launched on April 5, 2022. The winner was chosen by a vote of the Recording Academy’s opera fields committee.

Best Choral Performance

Diane Bish, conductor
The choristers of St. Paul’s Cathedral –
John Scott, organist

– “Bach: Musical Offering; Schütz: Symphonies Nos. 5 & 6”
(Delos)

Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance

The Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance has been awarded since 1961. The award is given to ensembles of between two and nine artists “for albums containing at least 51% playing time of new recordings”.

In 1962 and 1963, the award was known as Best Chamber Music Performance (without “Small Ensemble” in the title). In 1964 and 1965, it was awarded as Best Chamber Music Recording. Beginning in 1966, it has been presented as Best Chamber Music Performance (with or without Small Ensemble in the title).

Prior to 1961, chamber music recordings were eligible for the now-discontinued Grammy Award for Best Classical Performance – Orchestral or Instrumental.

^* Recordings were previously only eligible if they were released within the eligibility period; since 2002, they have also been eligible if they were recorded within the eligibility period, regardless of when they were released.

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