True Concord Voices & Orchestra landed its second Grammy nomination on Friday for โA Dream So Bright: Choral Music of Jake Runestad,โ released in August.
The Tucson ensemble is up for the 2025 Best Choral Performance Grammy for the album, which featured pianist Jeffrey Biegel. True Concord founder and music director Eric Holtan conducted the performance.
The nod follows True Concordโs 2015 Best Choral Performance nomination for โFar in the Heavens: Choral Music of Stephen Paulus.โ The ensemble, now in its 21st season, lost, but Paulus won a Best Contemporary Classical Composition Grammy for the albumโs centerpiece โPrayers & Remembrances,โ commissioned by True Concord in 2011 to commemorate the 10th anniversary of 9/11.
Paulus, who died in 2014, was awarded posthumously.
True Concord is the only classical music ensemble from Tucson to ever get a Grammy nomination.
โWeโre thrilled with this one,โ Holtan said Friday. โI definitely thought it was worthy of consideration. Jake is one of Americaโs rising stars as a composer and he wrote two incredible pieces of music on two critically important topics.โ
The album, on Reference Recordings, garnered critical acclaim, with Fanfare saying it had โexceptionally fine music that has something original and important to say.โ
Gramophone said the album makes โa forceful social statement โฆ that comes through with bold and sensitive resolveโ while Remy Franckโs Luxembourg-based online classical music blog Pizzicato called it โevocative, effective and musically brilliant, and truly exciting in this magnificent performance.โ
โA Dream So Brightโ is anchored by the True Concord-commission โEarth Symphony,โ which explores the human cost of climate change. It opens with Runestadโs โDreams of the Fallen,โ commissioned by Biegel with text by American veteran-turned-poet Brian Turner that explores the harsh realism of battle.
โI think the themes of the music probably resonated with members of the (Recording) Academy,โ Holtan said of the organization that presents the Grammys. โCertainly the beauty and compelling nature of Jakeโs writing and the poetry; the libretto that we commissioned of Todd Boss for โEarth Symphony,โ to me, is itself worthy of recognition.โ
True Concord recorded the album in May 2023 at Paradise Valleyโs Camelback Bible Church with producer Peter Rutenberg, who also produced โFar In the Heavens.โ
Holtan said the Grammy nomination โis a very strong affirmation of the artistic quality of our organization,โ adding that he wished Runestad had been nominated for โEarth Symphonyโ or โDreams of the Fallen.โ โEarth Symphonyโ did win an Emmy Award in 2022 and โDreamsโ took home the prestigious Morton Gould Young Composer Award from the ASCAP Foundation in 2013.
True Concord finished its next recording โHear I Am: Music of Jocelyn Hagenโ in May; it is expected to be released next year.
The Grammys will be awarded Feb. 2, 2025, in Los Angeles.