RECORDINGS FEATURING ROBERT SPANO AND THE ATLANTA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA AND
CHORUSES WIN 3 GRAMMY AWARDS

ASO Recording of Ainadamar Wins "Best Opera Recording" and
"Best Classical Contemporary Composition"

ASO Recording of Del Tredici: Paul Revere's Ride,
Theofanidis: The Here And Now, Bernstein: Lamentation
Wins in the Category of "Producer of the Year (classical)"

First Ever Grammy Award Received by ASO Recording
in the Category of "Best Opera Recording"

February 11, 2006, Atlanta, GA - ASO recordings featuring Atlanta Symphony
Orchestra Music Director Robert Spano, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra,
the ASO Choruses, and Director of Choruses Norman Mackenzie received
three Grammy Awards in the categories of "Best Opera Recording," "Best
Classical Contemporary Composition," and "Producer of the Year (classical)".
The two Grammy Award-winning recordings are Ainadamar: Fountain Of Tears
(Deutsche Grammophon) and Del Tredici: Paul Revere's Ride, Theofanidis:
The Here And Now, Bernstein: Lamentation (Telarc).

Ainadamar: Fountain of Tears won a Grammy Award in the category of "Best
Opera Recording", marking the first time an ASO recording has received
a Grammy in this category.  Del Tredici: Paul Revere's Ride, Theofanidis:
The Here And Now, Bernstein: Lamentation (Telarc), which won the Grammy
Award in the category of "Producer of the Year (classical)", features
works commissioned by the ASO and Robert Spano.  In addition, the Orchestra
and Robert Spano performed the world premiere recordings of Golijov's
Ainadamar, Del Tredici's Paul Revere's Ride, and Theofanidis' The Here
and Now.  Osvaldo Golijov and Christopher Theofanidis are members of
Robert Spano's highly acclaimed "Atlanta School of Composers".

Proud of its pioneering role in digitally recorded music, the Atlanta
Symphony Orchestra has recorded a discography of more than 100 releases,
many in collaboration with the world-famous ASO Choruses.  ASO recordings
have won critical acclaim as well as awards from a number of audio and
record-review publications in both the USA and Britain, along with a
total of 26 Grammy Awards from the National Academy of Recording Arts
and Sciences (NARAS).  The ASO is widely recognized for its commitment
to contemporary music and its discography is a reflection of that
commitment, featuring 23 pieces by some of today's up and coming composers
in world premiere recordings of their works.  The ASO-one of the only
orchestras in the US to have an ongoing relationship with a major
label-records primarily for Telarc, with additional releases available
on the Argo, Deutsche Grammophon, New World, Nonesuch, Philips, Pro Arte,
Sony Classical, and Vox labels.

Ainadamar (Deutsche Grammophon)

"Best Opera Recording" and "Best Classical Contemporary Composition"

This recording of Ainadamar is the first of two Deutsche Grammophon
albums of Osvaldo Golijov's music by Robert Spano and the Atlanta Symphony
Orchestra as part of a multi-year performance/recording project between
the orchestra and the composer.  Ainadamar was performed by the ASO and
Robert Spano with soprano Dawn Upshaw, Jessica Rivera, Jesus Montoya,
Eduardo Chama, Sean Mayer, Robb Asklof, Anne-Carolyn Bird, and Sindhu
Chandrasekaran to near sell out audiences in Atlanta as well as at
California's Ojai Festival and Chicago's Ravinia Festival during the
summer of 2006.  The album of Ainadamar, recorded in Atlanta in November
of 2005, includes the cast listed above and features the women of Atlanta
Symphony Orchestra Chorus, under the direction of Norman Mackenzie,
Director of Choruses.

Golijov's Ainadamar is a searing opera about personal courage in the
face of political repression.  The composer weaves together two events
from Spain's bloody past using the poignant memories of two women:
revolutionary martyr Mariana Pineda and Leftist actress Margarita Xirgu,
sung by Dawn Upshaw.  Central to the drama is the assassination in 1936
of poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca, shot by fascists beside a
spring in Grenada called the Fountain of Tears (or Ainadamar, in Arabic).

Del Tredici: Paul Revere's Ride; Theofanidis: The Here And Now;

Bernstein: Lamentation (Telarc)

"Producer of the Year"

On October 28, 2005, Telarc released the world premiere recording of two
works commissioned by the ASO and Robert Spano: Paul Revere's Ride by
Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Del Tredici and The Here and Now
by Masterprize winner Christopher Theofanidis.  Both works are performed
by Robert Spano conducting the combined Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and
Chorus with soloists Hila Plitmann, Richard Clement and Brett Polegato.
The recording concludes with the "Lamentation" from one of Leonard
Bernstein's earliest works, Symphony No.  1 (Jeremiah).

This recording was Robert Spano's sixth Telarc recording with the ASO.
Of the six, Vaughan Williams's Sea Symphony, Berlioz's Requiem, and
Jennifer Higdon's City Scape received a total of five Grammy awards.
His other Telarc albums with the ASO are Rainbow Body - which includes
works by Christopher Theofanidis, Jennifer Higdon, Samuel Barber and
Aaron Copland - and Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade.

Janos Gereben/SF
www.sfcv.org
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