Armenian Artists Orbelian and Mansurian Nominated for 2018 Grammy Awards

Composer Tigran Mansurian and conductor Constantine Orbelian were recognized in this year’s list of Grammy Award nominees (Graphic: The Armenian Weekly)

LOS ANGELES (A.W.)—The Recording Academy on Tuesday announced its list of nominees for the 60th annual Grammy Awards, including nominees composer Tigran Mansurian and conductor Constantine Orbelian. Awards will be given in 84 categories, across 29 fields in the music industry.

In the category Best Classical Solo Vocal Album, Armenian-American conductor Constantine Orbelian, nephew of the late Konstantin Orbelian (known by colleagues as the “godfather” of jazz in Armenia), was recognized for his work on the album “Svidirov: Russia Cast Adrift.”

The album features world-renowned Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky (who just last week lost his battle to brain cancer), singing the vocal music of the lesser-known neo-romantic Russian composer Georgy Sviridov (1915–1998) with the St. Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra and Style of Five Ensemble.

The 78-year-old Mansurian was recognized for his for his 2017 album “Tigran Mansurian: Requiem,” dedicated to the memory of the victims of the Armenian Genocide. The composition was nominated in two categories: Best Contemporary Classical Composition and Best Choral Performance. The album’s producer, Manfred Eicher, was also nominated for Producer of the Year in the Classical genre.

According to the composer’s website, the composition “reconciles the sound and sensibility of his country’s traditions with those of Western practices, the combination of ancient Armenian religious and secular music with the Latin Requiem text, ‘giving rise to something unexpected.’” The Requiem is led by conductor Alexander Liebreich and performed by the RIAS Kammerchor and Münchener Kammerorchester.

Born in Beirut in 1939, Mansurian repatriated to Soviet Armenia with his family in 1947. He is famous for his film scoring, notably in the iconic film “The Color of Pomegranates” by visionary Soviet filmmaker Sergey Parajanov. His album “Monodia” was nominated for Grammy Awards in 2005 in the categories Best Instrumental Soloist(s) Performance (with Orchestra) and Best Classical Contemporary Composition.

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