SEATTLE SYMPHONY RECEIVES THREE GRAMMY NOMINATIONS FOR ITS SECOND ALL-DUTILLEUX ALBUM; Seattle Symphony’s Recording of Henri Dutilleux’s Métaboles, L’arbre des songes and Symphony No. 2, Le double Nominated for: Best Orchestral Performance; Best Engineered Album, Classical; Best Classical Instrumental Solo (by Augustin Hadelich)

Seattle Symphony’s Recording of Henri Dutilleux’s Métaboles, L’arbre des songes and Symphony No. 2, Le double Nominated for:

Best Orchestral Performance; Best Engineered Album, Classical; Best Classical Instrumental Solo (by Augustin Hadelich)

New York, NY — It was announced today that the Seattle Symphony has received three nominations in the classical category for the 2016 Grammy Awards®. The nominations, all for the second installment in the all-Dutilleux series on the Seattle Symphony Media label, include Best Orchestral Performance, Best Classical Instrumental Solo (by Augustin Hadelich) and Best Engineered Performance.

“I congratulate our Music Director Ludovic Morlot, our friend Augustin Hadelich, our audio engineer Dmitriy Lipay, and all of our musicians on these nominations,” said Simon Woods, Seattle Symphony President & CEO. “It’s becoming clear that our recordings of Dutilleux’s orchestral music are making a huge impact in the discography of this important composer. This  series has been an incredibly rewarding journey, and we look forward to sharing our third installment with the world next summer.”

“Morlot evokes the thrill of ears discovering orchestral vistas and architecture in the moment.” – Gramophone

“Meticulously crafted music that delights the ear as it engages the mind, it is brilliantly played by the Seattle orchestra and the probing violinist Augustin Hadelich.” – Chicago Tribune

In Volume 2, Morlot and the orchestra continue their distinctive survey of the French composer’s orchestral works, featuring a studio recording of the violin concerto L’arbre des songes (The Tree of Dreams) with violinist Augustin Hadelich, and electrifying live performances of Symphony No. 2 and Métaboles.

Released in March 2014, Volume 1 was hailed by The New York Times as a “Gorgeous, authoritative collection” and received three Grammy nominations last year for Best Orchestral Performance, Best Classical Instrumental Solo by Xavier Phillips and Best Engineered Album. The orchestra plans to release Volume 3 during Dutilleux’s 100th anniversary season in 2016.

The Seattle Symphony is grateful to Joan Watjen for her generous support of Seattle Symphony Media CDs in memory of her husband Craig.

The performances of Métaboles were presented as part of the Delta Air Lines Masterworks Season and the performance on September 28 was sponsored by Microsoft.

The June 5 performance of Symphony No. 2, Le double was sponsored by Delta Air Lines, with additional support from the French-American Fund for Contemporary Music, a program of FACE with major support from the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, SACEM, Institut Francais, the Florence Gould Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Launched in 2014, Seattle Symphony Media is the Seattle Symphony’s independent in-house record label.  The Symphony has an extensive catalogue of over 140 recordings, which have brought forth 21 Grammy Award nominations throughout its history. Under the direction of Music Director Ludovic Morlot, and President & CEO Simon Woods, the Symphony’s in-house record label features both “core repertoire” and some of the eclectic and contemporary programming for which the Seattle Symphony has become recognized. The label includes both studio recordings and performances captured live in concert, allowing the organization an unprecedented breadth of repertoire choices.

All recordings are made in the acoustically superb Benaroya Hall and engineered by the Grammy-nominated recording engineer Dmitriy Lipay. Using the Symphony’s own state-of-the-art in-house recording studio, recordings have been engineered to audiophile standards and aim to capture as realistically as possible the sound of the orchestra performing onstage with naturalistic imaging, depth of field and dynamic range. Distributed by Naxos of America, the recordings are available in both physical and digital formats from a variety of retailers. Digital content is available in stereo, “Mastered for iTunes,” 96k 24-bit high resolution and 5.1 surround sound.

For more information and sound clips, visit Seattle Symphony Media online

French conductor Ludovic Morlot is in his fifth season as Music Director of the Seattle Symphony. There have been many highlights during his first four seasons in this position, including an exhilarating performance at Carnegie Hall in May 2014, as reported in The New York Times: “The performance Mr. Morlot coaxed from his players was rich with shimmering colors and tremulous energy.”

During the 2015–2016 season he leads the Seattle Symphony in a wide variety of works including the launch of a two-year cycle of Beethoven symphonies and piano concertos; Berio’s Sinfonia featuring vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth; Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 4; Mahler’s Symphony No. 1; and Fauré’s Requiem. Complemented by the Seattle Symphony’s highly innovative series, Untuxed and [untitled], this season will also see the release of several more recordings on the Orchestra’s label, Seattle Symphony Media.

Morlot was also Chief Conductor of La Monnaie, one of Europe’s most prestigious opera houses, for three years (2012–2014). During this time he conducted several new productions including La Clemenza di Tito, Jenůfa and Pelléas et Mélisande. Concert performances, both in Brussels and Aix-en-Provence, included repertoire by Beethoven, Britten, Bruneau, Stravinsky and Webern.

Trained as a violinist, Morlot studied conducting at the Royal Academy of Music in London and then at the Royal College of Music as recipient of the Norman del Mar Conducting Fellowship. Morlot was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in 2014 in recognition of his significant contribution to music. He is Chair of Orchestral Conducting Studies at the University of Washington School of Music and lives in Seattle with his wife, Ghizlane, and their two children.

About the Seattle Symphony

The Seattle Symphony is one of America’s leading symphony orchestras and is internationally acclaimed for its innovative programming and extensive recording history. Under the leadership of Music Director Ludovic Morlot since September 2011, the Symphony is heard from September through July by more than 500,000 people through live performances and radio broadcasts. It performs in one of the finest modern concert halls in the world — the acoustically superb Benaroya Hall — in downtown Seattle. Its extensive education and community engagement programs reach over 65,000 children and adults each year. The Seattle Symphony has a deep commitment to new music, commissioning many works by living composers each season, including John Luther Adams’ recent Become Ocean, which won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Music and a 2015 Grammy for Best Contemporary Classical Composition. The orchestra has made nearly 150 recordings and has received 21 Grammy nominations, two Emmy Awards and numerous other accolades. In 2014 the Symphony launched its in-house recording label, Seattle Symphony Media.