FOR YOUR
GRAMMY® Consideration
A Sonic Youth // ad tendo // Adoration // as we are // Audacity (Live) // Cellostatus // Dawn // Eclipse // Forgiveness // Hearth // Immunity // Missing // Nova // Parallels // Sounds of Claire // Seasons of Change // Seven Days // Shapes in Collective Space // The Mirage Calls
A SONIC YOUTH
Bach Collegium San Diego's debut release with Rezurrection Recordz, A Sonic Youth, showcases two vibrant early works by J.S. Bach and Handel, composed around the year 1707. Recorded in the fall of 2021, the album highlights Bach's cantata Christ lag in Todes Banden, where his mastery of Lutheran tradition meets the emerging Italian style, presented through a bold chorale fantasia. In contrast, Handel’s Dixit Dominus captures the youthful composer’s fiery and virtuosic response to the vibrant musical atmosphere of Rome. BCSD’s interpretations bring a distinctive vitality, offering fresh insight into these well-loved compositions.
Best Choral Performance
Best Classical Producer
Peter Rutenberg
Best Classical Sound Engineer
Steve Caplan
ad tendo
ARTIST: SIMONE PORTER
BBC Music: ★★★★★
Porter is completely secure in the technical demands of the music, and also has an unerring sense of pacing, so that nothing outstays its welcome.
— BBC Music
Best Classical Instrumental Solo
ADORATION
ARTIST: ALAN PIERSON, THE CHOIR OF TRINITY WALL STREET, SILVANA QUARTET
Adoration follows a high school student whose fictional story about a terrorist plot goes viral, revealing how grief, racism, and media distortion collide. This live recording was produced by Beth Morrison Projects, and the cast includes Miriam Khalil, Omar Najmi, David Adam Moore, Grammy Award winner Karim Sulayman, Naomi Louisa O’Connell, and Marc Kudisch, joined by the Grammy-nominated Choir of Trinity Wall Street under Thomas McCargar, the Silvana Quartet, sound designer Daniel Neumann, and electronics by Kouyoumdjian.
Best Opera Recording
Best Engineered Album, Classical
Daniel Neumann
The Harry Belafonte Best Song for Social Change
This Time of Year by Mary Kouyoumdjian
as we are
ARTIST: POIESIS QUARTET, NANCY MAULTSBY
”Their debut recording sees the four players completely confident in themselves and the music they’re performing.”
— Cleveland Classical
Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance
Best Contemporary Classical Composition
String Quartet No. 1, Shades Of Green by Clint Needham
Best Contemporary Classical Composition
Songs of Correspondence by Richard Stout
AUDACITY (LIVE)
ARTIST: SHANE SHANAHAN
”Audacity is a conversation…between the musicians on stage, between the musicians and the audience…all unique voices exchanging ideas and emotions.”
— Celtic Life International
Best Global Music Album
Best Global Music Performance
Best Instrumental Composition
Heavy Heart (Live) by Shane Shanahan
CELLOSTATUS
ARTIST: NICHOLAS FINCH, NOULOU CHAMBER PLAYERS, JASON SEBER
Cellist Nicholas Finch and the NouLou Chamber Players present Cellostatus, a compelling album featuring three new works for cello and orchestra conducted by Jason Seber. This world premiere collection showcases compositions by Alyssa Weinberg, Dorian Wallace, and Ljova (Lev Zhurbin), exploring comprehensive themes in modern life through a blend of traditional and innovative musical elements.
Best Contemporary Classical Composition
Cellostatus by Ljova
Best Classical Instrumental Solo
DAWN
ARTIST: Grand Electric
“As with their performances on this album, Wunsch and Dancigers's compositional styles also complement each other, with the latter's more continuous, incremental, luminous, process-based pieces a foil to Wunsch's ominous quartal harmonies and gritty juxtapositions.”
— Gramophone
Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance
Best Instrumental Composition
Take Chants by Aaron Wunsch
Best Contemporary Classical Composition
Image and Gravity by Mark Dancigers
ECLIPSE
ARTIST: FIVEBYFIVE
"A total solar eclipse visited North America on April 8, 2024. To celebrate this breathtaking celestial event, fivebyfive created a one-of-a-kind concert experience for audiences that included originally commissioned inspired music to celebrate the eclipse, with immersive video presented on a full dome of a planetarium. This album captures music from the concert and offers audiences a means in which to explore and meditate on their own experiences of the eclipse, pondering the wonder of it all.
Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance
Best Contemporary Classical Composition
In the Path of Totality by Jessica Meyer
Best Contemporary Classical Composition
Eclipse by Marc Mellits
FORGIVENESS
ARTIST: ALBANY SYMPHONY, DAVID ALAN MILLER, MARC BAMUTHI JOSEPH
Forgiveness is a powerful new orchestral work by composer Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) and librettist Marc Bamuthi Joseph, performed by the Albany Symphony under David Alan Miller. Framed as a four-part meditation: Redemption, Reconciliation, Discernment, and Grace, the piece explores forgiveness as both a personal and political act. Roumain’s score blends symphonic sweep with moments of intimacy and silence, offering space for Joseph’s searing spoken-word reflections on race, justice, and democracy. Together, they ask: Can our country survive without forgiveness?
Best Spoken Word Poetry Album
Best Contemporary Classical Composition
Forgiveness by Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR)
Best Engineered Album, Classical
Marlan Barry
HEARTH
ARTIST: ARIEL HOROWITZ
Ariel Horowitz’s debut album Hearth invites you to gather and warm up around the fire. Hailed by the Washington Post as “sweetly lyrical,” Ariel offers a dialogue of classical works and original songs, spoken word, and soundscapes; Kreisler, Still, and Szymanowski alongside her own cider donuts, Solitude, How Do You Tell Your Child?, and not that bad. Hearth’s varied soundworlds tell stories of healing, community, and liberation.
Best Classical Instrumental Solo
IMMUNITY
ARTIST: JOSHUA ROMAN
"The album title — “Immunity” — reflected the “experience of Covid and wanting to be immune from this,” as well as the idea that the world is interconnected and people need to depend on each other."
— New York Times
Best Classical Instrumental Solo
Best Contemporary Classical Composition
Immunity by Joshua Roman
Best Contemporary Classical Composition
Duet by Joshua Roman
Best Arrangement, Instruments And Vocals
Hallelujah arranged by Joshua Roman
Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance
Joshua Roman and Tessa Lark
Best Engineered Album, Classical
Producer of the Year, Classical
Adam Abeshouse
MISSING
ARTIST: ATOM (ARTISTS OF THE OPERA MISSING), TIMOTHY LONG, CONTINUUM ENSEMBLE
Best Opera Recording
Best Contemporary Classical Composition
Missing by Brian Current
PARALLELS
Parallels is the result of a creative collaboration between composer John Nolan (Folk Physics), renowned cellist Mike Block, and producer Dan Cardinal. Produced over five years beginning at the start of lockdown, each track was crafted and recorded independently, a testament to the trust and synergy between the artists. The album draws inspiration from the atmospheric worlds of Ólafur Arnalds, Brian Eno, and Nils Frahm, weaving ambient textures with emotive strings and nuanced production. Parallels is a collection of wordless-songs about solitude, distance and connection between parallel paths.
Best New Age, Ambient, or Chant Album
NOVA
ARTIST: SPECULUM MUSICAE, EMANUEL AX, LYNN HARRELL
Best Historical Album
SOUNDS OF CLAIRE
Sounds of Claire is a dreamlike journey through memory and imagination, composed by Alex Wakim as a tribute to his grandmother, Claire Maalouf Haddad. Blending jazz, tango, Arabic modes, and classical influences, the album reimagines the Levant of the 1930s–50s through her eyes, before exile reshaped her world. Each track offers a vignette: a train ride from Beirut to Damascus, a lavish embassy party, a wedding under ancient cedars. In Wakim’s hands, memory becomes music, and lost moments are reborn in sound.
Best Contemporary Instrumental Album
Best Instrumental Composition
Independence by Alex Wakim
Best Arrangement, Instruments And Vocals
Je suis seul ce soir (arr. Alex Wakim)
Seasons of Change
ARTIST: CURTIS J STEWART
Best Classical Compendium
Best Instrumental Composition
Seasons of Change by Curtis J Stewart
Best Contemporary Classical Composition
Seasons of Change by Curtis J Stewart
SEVEN DAYS
ARTIST: PEDJA MUŽIJEVIĆ
Contemporary Classical Composition
Seven Days by Gregory Spears
SHAPES IN COLLECTIVE SPACE
ARTIST: TALLÃ ROUGE
Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance
Best Arrangement, Instruments And Vocals
Fluorescein by Gemma Peacocke
Best Contemporary Classical Composition
Shapes in Collective Space by inti figgis-vizueta
Best Engineered Album, Classical
Andrew Tripp
Producer of the Year, Classical
Elaine Martone
THE MIRAGE CALLS
ARTIST: KANSAS CITY CHORALE, CHARLES BRUFFY
Best Choral Performance
Producer of the Year, Classical
Blanton Alspaugh
Best Engineered Album, Classical
Dirk Sobotka, Jacob Steingart