Czech Grammy winners
The annual Grammy Awards are due to be announced in the United States on Sunday night. To mark the occasion, we’ll listen to Czech musicians who have received the prestigious award in the past, most of them in the classical music category.
In 1982, the recording of Janáček’s opera From the House of the Dead, conducted by Charles Mackerras and featuring soloists Ivo Žídek, Jiří Zahradníček and Václav Zítek, received a Grammy for the Best opera recording.
In 1986, two Gramophone Awards were presented to the Czech-born musician Jan Hammer for Best Instrumental Composition and Best Pop Instrumental Performance. In both cases he received the award for his music for the series Miami Vice.
In 2013 the Grammy for Best Musical Theatre Album went to the Broadway adaptation of the film Once, a romance of an Irish busker with a Czech immigrant in Dublin. The music for the original film was partly composed by the Czech singer Markéta Irglová, who also appeared in the lead role.
In 2017, Czech jazz organist Ondřej Pivec scored a Grammy Award thanks to his performance on the album Take Me to the Alley by the singer-songwriter Gregory Porter. Pivec has since received two more nominations for the prestigious awards.
Last year, the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, led by American composer and conductor Vince Mendoza, won the prestigious Grammy award in the category of Best Arrangement, Instrumentation and Vocal Performance for their album To the Edge of Longing. The vocal solos were provided by American soprano Julia Bullock and the album was recorded in a studio in Prague.
