The Grammy's and Buffalo NY

Courtesy of Business First. Congratulations BPO!!!

High note for BPO at Grammy's

Business First of Buffalo - by James Fink

For the first time in its 74-year history, the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra has won a prestigious Grammy award — or, in this case, two honors.

The BPO won Grammys for the “Best Classical Performance” and “Best Classical Composition” for its “John Corigliano: Mr. Tambourine Man - Seven Poems of Bob Dylan” CD that was released last year. The orchestra was up for a third Grammy in the best engineered CD category for a collection of Respighi music, but lost to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Yo-Yo Ma.

The dual Grammys were also the first for JoAnn Falletta, the orchestra’s music director and principal conductor. The awards were announced Sunday.

Falletta, who is in Seattle for a guest appearance with that city’s orchestra, said she is more happy for the musicians than herself for the awards.

“All week, I kept telling them to keep things in perspective,” Falletta said. “But this is like hitting a home run. Now, the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra is part of an exclusive group of orchestras to win a Grammy and that says a lot.”

The Corigliano piece was recorded two springs ago in a series of live concerts at Kleinhans Music Hall . The CD was released last spring to much acclaim.

Corigliano, who had never heard Dylan’s music, took his words and put them to his own compositions. Vocalist Hila Plitmann sang the words to the BPO’s music.

“Even when we were recording, I could tell there was this special chemistry between the orchestra and John,” Falletta said.

In a related Grammy news, Buffalo’s self-proclaimed polka king, Jerry Darlak and the Touch, lost in their award bid to Jimmy Sturr in, appropriately enough, the “best polka” category.