Freshly decorated with a first Grammy in his career, Quebec conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin wanted to win the trophy even if he says he is not “very attached to the awards”.
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“When we make music, we really do it more to communicate with people, to be in concert halls, to know that people are listening to our recordings,” he said in an interview on LCN.
“But this Grammy, because it was something special for the composer Florence Price who unfortunately did not get the recognition she deserved during her lifetime, I really wanted this trophy. I screamed very loudly, I disturbed my cats when I won!” adds Mr. Nézet-Séguin.
The musician considers his prize to be above all “Florence Price’s first Grammy”.
“At the beginning of the 20th century, she said it herself: I have two handicaps, that of my sex and my race. Unfortunately, she was right because following being played by great orchestras during her lifetime, upon her death, her works fell into oblivion,” he says.
“It is a great injustice. And there are other cases like that of Florence Price. And it was very important that a leading orchestra like that of Philadelphia might help readjust (the situation) and amplify its voice,” concludes the conductor of the Metropolitan Orchestra.
Remember that Yannick Nézet-Séguin won the Grammy on Sunday for the album Price : Symphonies Nos. 1 et 3crowned best orchestral performance of the year.
