It’s music to our ears—
BGSU garners Grammys

BGSU College of Musical Arts faculty and alumni were well represented at the annual Grammy Awards Feb. 13.

Andrew Pelletier, a visiting assistant professor of horn, won in the Small Ensemble Performance (with or without conductor) category. Performing with the Southwest Chamber Ensemble, a California-based classical group, Pelletier played French horn on “Sonata for Four Horns” on the CD “Carlos Chavez—Complete Chamber Music, Vol. 2.”

Alumna Jennifer Higdon’s album of her compositions “City Scape” and “Concerto for Orchestra” was named the Best Classical Engineered Album. Released last March on Telarc and performed by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the recording was also nominated for best classical contemporary composition, classical album and orchestral performance.

After graduating from BGSU in 1986 with a bachelor’s degree in flute performance, Higdon received master’s and doctoral degrees in composition from the University of Pennsylvania and an artist diploma from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she is now on the composition faculty. A nationally recognized composer, her work has been commissioned and performed by orchestras across the country, including a piece that was commissioned in 2003 by the National Symphony Orchestra and performed at Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center. She has received many prestigious awards and fellowships, including a Guggenheim and a Charles Ives, the latter from the National Academy of Arts and Letters.

Her teachers at Bowling Green included Dr. Marilyn Shrude, Dr. Wallace DePue, Judith Bentley and Robert Spano, who directed the Bowling Green Philharmonia from 1985-89.

“The whole Grammy experience was an incredible thrill,” Higdon wrote in an email. “Creating a CD is such a collaborative effort that a ton of folks deserve the applause. But one of the biggest thrills for me in making the CD was working with conductor Robert Spano (former director of orchestras at BGSU) and having a chance to catch up with Lochlan McBain in the viola section (he was one of my classmates at BG). BG had a real presence in that disc.”

Spano was also recognized by the Grammys—first, as conductor of the Atlanta Symphony on Higdon’s recording, and second, for Best Choral Performance as conductor on Berlioz’s “Requiem,” with the Atlanta Symphony and Chorus.

In another award category, Richard Perry, who attended BGSU in the 1970s, played tenor sax, including a solo, on “Concert in the Garden” with the Maria Schneider Orchestra. Released by ArtistShare, the recording won Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album.