Chamber choir on list for Grammy nomination
USU’s Chamber Singers, a choral ensemble in the music department, was selected to be placed on a list as a possible nominee for three Grammy awards for its new CD, “Show Me Thy Ways: Choral Music of Daniel E. Gawthrop.”
The Chamber Singers were placed on the entry list for Best Classical Album, Best Choral Performance, and Best Engineered Album of the classical genre.
“It’s nice to be validated in terms of knowing you’re doing it (making music) the right way,” said Cory Evans, director of choral activities for the Caine College of the Arts’. “It’s more than just your mom telling you, who always says, ‘oh, that sounds nice.'”
Choir members were also pleased with the nomination entry.
“We were all blown away,” said senior Kristen Amundsen, who is a member of the choir. “When we went into it, we said we would make (the CD) for family and friends as a Christmas present, but we had no idea it would rise to this level. It was just like, ‘holy crap, we actually did this.'”
Evans said the accomplishment is not easily attained.
“In this profession, to get a Grammy nomination is almost like winning a Grammy,” he said.
Caine College of the Arts Dean Craig Jessop, former conductor of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, served as executive director of the project.
The disc was recorded by Grammy award-winning engineer Bruce Leek, who regularly records for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
The recordings took place between Feb. 25 and March 1 at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church in Hyde Park, Utah.
Evans said with the nomination, the choir is now stacked up against the professional likes of The Kings Singers, the Minnesota Orchestra and the Utah Symphony.
All the nominations were whittled down from thousands of applications. According to Evans, the entry level list for Best Classical Album now includes about 300 organizations; Best Choral Performance, about 70; and Best Engineered Album-Classical, about 200.
“It is a testament to the quality of students at Utah State,” he said, while adding that hopefully a greater measure of respect can come to the university’s music program as a whole due to the nomination entry.
“Sometimes we feel we are not valued as much as other schools in the state and nation,” Evans said. “This shows that we can basically hang with anybody.”
One of Evans’ students, senior Jacob Calderwood, said, “This shows the amount of things that we can achieve in a small department, in a largely undergrad program.”
The choral education major said while many universities with larger music programs, like BYU and the University of Utah, operate their music programs entirely with graduate students.
Large-scale recognition like the Grammy nomination entry will go a long way toward improving the image of USU’s music department, Amundsen said.
“The music department is on the cusp of growing a lot, with some of the attention it’s getting and with the stellar teachers we have here,” she said.
This attention attracts those not-yet Aggie singers, Calderwood said.
“(The entry nomination) paves the way for excellence, both now and in the future,” he said. “Having this momentum … is a great recruitment tool.”
Choir member Linda Linford said the road to the entry-level nomination was marked by a different outlook on the choir’s body of work, even going back to last year.
“From Day One of fall semester (2009) I could feel a difference. There was a lot more unity in the choir,” said Linford, who, along with other choir members and Evans, cited a performance at Yale University in November 2009 as a major turning point for the choir’s approach to their music-making.
“There was so much more of a sense of professionalism,” she said. “You could tell the energy that (Evans) gave off (this year), that we fed off more. We took it upon ourselves to improve and know we could go there, and make an awesome quality CD that people will love forever. We needed to be more particular and picky about what we did and didn’t let slide.”
Evans said the trip to Yale and entry list recognition last month was also a beneficiary of the choir’s efforts in previous years, although this year’s version needed to raise their game in a hurry.
“We had two months to become a professional-quality ensemble,” Evans said. “And we did it.”
“We had to train ourselves to have this very mature, rich sound to make the CD,” said choir member Chelsea Andrus.
Attaining that level is something that ought to only further motivate students to enjoy the entertainment the choir can provide, Amundson said.
“When it comes to a choral concert, sometimes people think it’s boring classical music,” Amundson said. “And sometimes it is. But Dr. Evans works hard to make sure to provide entertaining music.”
“It’s great to be a part of something that will last forever,” Evans said. “It will last a lot longer than we do. It’s a validation to see that others value our music.”
– rhett.wilkinson@aggiemail.usu.edu