While celebrities like Bad Bunny, Billie Eilish and Kendrick Lamar made headlines at the Grammy Awards on Feb. 1 in Los Angeles, two Lawrence University professors also took home top awards at the Grammys as part of a contemporary classical ensemble.
Lawrence professors Michael Clayville and Erin Lesser, together with their 22-person ensemble Alarm Will Sound, won a Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance.
Alarm Will Sound took home the Grammy for its recording of “Land of Winter” by composer Donnacha Dennehy. The album, according to the band webpage, “immerses listeners in the shifting atmospheres of the Irish landscape.”
“It’s less about postcard images of Ireland and more about time passing, light changing, seasons overlapping,” Clayville wrote on his blog Dec. 18.
Clayville and Lesser, who are married to each other, play trombone and flute, respectively, and teach at the conservatory at Lawrence. Clayville also teaches business and entrepreneurship courses.
“It is an incredible honor for Erin and me to represent Lawrence University and its world-class Conservatory of Music through this Grammy win,” Clayville said in a news release from the university. “The values we carry from Lawrence – artistic rigor, collaboration, and curiosity – are central to everything we do.”
“This weekend was about far more than a trophy. It was about community,” the group said in a Feb. 3 post on social media.
Rebecca Loroff is an education reporter for the USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin. She welcomes story tips and feedback. Contact her at rloroff@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Appleton Post-Crescent: Two Lawrence professors win Grammy with contemporary classical ensemble
Reporting by Rebecca Loroff, Appleton Post-Crescent / Appleton Post-Crescent
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