Maestro Yannick Nézet-Séguin won two Grammy awards on Sunday evening, presented at the Premier gala. As musical director and conductor of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and the Metropolitan Opera Chorus, the Quebecer won the prize for Best Opera Recording for Fire Shut up in my Bones, by Afro-American composer and jazzman Terrence Blanchard. Then, as piano accompanist, in the category of Best Classical Vocal Solo Album for Voice Of Nature — The Anthropoceneinterpreted by the famous American soprano Renée Fleming.
Opera in three acts whose libretto is signed by actress, screenwriter and director Kasi Lemmons, Fire Shut up in my Bones by Terrence Blanchard was first created at the Opera Theater of Saint Louis in 2019 before being presented once more in September 2021 by the MET. This is the second opera composed by Blanchard, a story adapted from the memoirs of journalist Charles Blow which tells the story of the protagonist, a young African-American who grew up in destitution and violence and who, as an adult, makes peace with his past. The recording of this performance was released by MET Opera Records.
The singer Renée Fleming shares her Grammy with Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who accompanies her on the piano on Voice Of Nature — The Anthropocene, a repertoire of airs combining the romantic and the contemporary, from Fauré and Liszt to the young Nico Muhly. The Decca house published the album in October 2021. These two statuettes are added to that, won in April 2022, for the Best orchestral performance of the Symphonies Nos. 1 and 3 by African-American composer Florence Price, this time while conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra.
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