The 2023 Grammy nominations have been announced, and The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music faculty and alumni are well represented. Among the nominees for Best Opera Recording is Angel Blue, who earned her master’s from UCLA in 2008.
And this year holds a special treat. On Monday, November 21, at 7:00 p.m. Angel Blue will perform the inaugural Judith L. Smith Voice Recital at Schoenberg Hall. Free tickets are still available for those who want to spend an evening listening to Angel Blue perform, but we cannot guarantee they will last!
Blue is no stranger to the Grammy Awards, having won for Best Opera Recording in 2019 with Porgy and Bess.
Arturo O’Farrill, associate dean for equity and inclusion as well as professor of music and global jazz studies, was nominated for Best Latin Jazz Album for his Fandango at the Wall in New York. O’Farrill and his eighteen-piece Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra performed with musicians from Veracruz, Mexico. The album celebrated a music festival created by Jose Francisco Castillo in 2008 and that was captured in the documentary Fandango at the Wall, directed by Varda Bar-Kar. Seven-time Grammy winner O’Farrill most recently won Best Latin Jazz Album in 2021 for Four Questions.
The Los Angeles Philharmonic’s recording of Dvořák: Symphonies Nos. 7-9 has been nominated for Best Orchestral Performance. Several of The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music’s faculty play with the LA Phil, including Boris Allakhverdyan (principal clarinet), Denis Bouriakov (principal flute), Chris Hanulik (principal bass), Varty Manouelian (violin), and James Miller (associate principal trombone), and their performance under Gustav Dudamel’s baton is recognized in the nomination.
Wayne Shorter, jazz legend and adjunct professor at the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz in the School of Music, was nominated for best improvised Jazz solo. Shorter is a fixture at the Grammys, with 20 nominations and 11 wins, most recently winning Best Instrumental Jazz Album for Emanon in 2019.
Congratulations to all faculty and alumni who earned Grammy nominations in 2023:
Best Latin Jazz Album – Fandango at the Wall in New York – Arturo O’Farrill (Professor, Global Jazz Studies and Music) & The Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra Featuring the Congra Patria Son Jarocho Collective
Best Improvised Jazz Solo – “Endangered Species,” – Wayne Shorter (Adjunct Professor, Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz)
Best Opera Recording – Fire Shut Up in My Bones – Angel Blue, principal soloist (M.M. 2008).
Our faculty colleagues in the Los Angeles Philharmonic were recognized through the nomination for Best Orchestral Performance for Dvořák: Symphonies Nos. 7-9.
The 2023 GRAMMYs, officially known as the 65th GRAMMY Awards, will air live on Sunday, Feb. 5, from Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena, and will be broadcast live on the CBS Television Network and stream live and on-demand on Paramount+ at 8-11:30 p.m. ET / 5-8:30 p.m. PT+.