Pop Quiz: What genre of music boasts the artist who holds the record for the most GRAMMY Awards® in a lifetime?
If you guessed classical, congratulations! You are correct! The conductor Sir Georg Solti is the record-holder.
The nominations come out on Wednesday, and my first post on grammy.com will appear a few days after that. I’ll have plenty of subject matter to choose from — I’m covering twelve different award categories! (The most categories in any other single genre is eight, I believe.)
The Classical Categories are:
- Engineered Album, Classical Album
- Producer Of The Year, Classical Album
- Classical Album
- Opera Recording
- Choral Performance
- Instrumental Soloist(s) Performance (with Orchestra)
- Instrumental Soloist Performance (without Orchestra)
- Chamber Music Performance
- Small Ensemble Performance
- Classical Vocal Performance
- Classical Contemporary Composition
- Classical Crossover Album
Fortunately for me, I’m not expected to cover every single nomination; I get to choose the highlights.
But I thought it would be a good idea to study up on the history of the Grammys in general in preparation for this gig. Here are a few tidbits.
In addition to Sir Georg, some other notable record-holders include Alison Krauss, who is third in overall numbers and first among female artists, with 26 wins. The band with the most awards is U2, with 22.
In the classical categories, repeat winners include Leonard Bernstein with 16 awards, and Yo-Yo Ma with 15.
Béla Fleck is quite the musical jack-of-all-trades, having won awards in nine categories: country, pop, jazz, bluegrass, classical, folk, spoken word, composition and arranging.
And those shiny statues you’ll see people hoisting on January 31?
The trophies are still made by hand and gold-plated, but “stunt” trophies are used during the awards ceremony.
I wonder what happens to those “stunt” trophies after the big show? Hmm, add that to my list of questions to ask when I get to L.A…. 😀
