The late composer Stephen Paulus has work nominated in three categories of the 2016 Grammy Awards, and he's just one of several musicians with local ties who are in contention this year.
Paulus's Prayers & Remembrances is nominated for Best Contemporary Classical Composition. The piece appears on the Reference Recordings release Paulus: Far in the Heavens, a True Concord Voices & Orchestra recording which is nominated for Best Choral Performance. The Naxos release Paulus: Three Places of Enlightenment; Veil of Tears & Grand Concerto is nominated for Best Classical Compendium.
Paulus, a Twin Cities composer who died in 2014 at the age of 65, was nominated last year for Best Contemporary Classical Composition (Concerto for Two Trumpets & Band) — an award that went to John Luther Adams's Become Ocean.
Minnesota native Craig Hella Johnson was also nominated, with Conspirare, for Best Choral Performance: their recording of Pablo Neruda's The Poet Sings.
Another artist from Minnesota, acclaimed jazz composer Maria Schneider, was nominated for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album. The nominated album, The Thompson Fields, also featured a saxophone solo, by Donny McCaslin, nominated for Best Improvised Jazz Solo. Schneider further earned a nod for Best Arrangement, Instruments and Vocals — for her work on David Bowie's single "Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)."
Local notables landing Grammy nods in other categories include St. Paul rapper Allan Kingdom, who collaborated with Kanye West on the twice-nominated track "All Day." The Duluth-born Bob Dylan earned a Traditional Pop Vocal Album nomination for Shadows in the Night, his collection of songs popularized by Frank Sinatra.
Minnesota audiences will also be familiar with Chris Thile; the man who's set to succeed Garrison Keillor as host of A Prairie Home Companion was nominated for three Grammys as part of the Punch Brothers.
The 58th Grammys will be presented on Feb. 15, with the main ceremony being broadcast live on CBS.
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