On March 14, 2021, Sarah Brailey, Dashon Burton, James Blachly and the Experiential Orchestra won a Grammy award for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album for Smyth’s The Prison.
This is Smyth’s first Grammy, and the first Grammy awarded to a historical female composer.
The hour-long work was released by Chandos Records on August 7, 2020.
Liner notes were contributed by Elizabeth Wood, Amy Zigler, and James Blachly.
Check out the fascinating piece on Smyth titled “Dignity, Daring, and Disability: The Pioneering Queer Composer and Defiant Genius Ethel Smyth on Making Music While Going Deaf” by Maria Popova!
Check out the press release in Musical America for the upcoming CD release of Ethel Smyth’s The Prison, performed by the Experiential Orchestra and soprano Sarah Brailey and bass-baritone Dashon Burton, conducted by James Blachly!
CD to be released August 7, 2020 on Chandos Records and is already available for pre-order on Amazon!
For more information on the history and manuscripts of The Wreckers, be sure to listen to BBC Radio 4’s episode of Tales from the Stave!
Feel free to browse our Music Manuscripts list! The list of music manuscripts and correspondence was compiled by Amy Zigler.
The Fisher Center at Bard College has made available Ethel Smyth’s most successful opera, The Wreckers, first performed in 1906.
Staged in 2015 for the SummerScape series, this is the first time one of Smyth’s operas is available for viewing online.
Enjoy!
For more about this performance, read Amy Zigler’s review here.