The local orchestra A Far Cry has been nominated for a Grammy Award for its first album on its own label.
“Dreams & Prayers,” is nominated in the category “Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance.” It marks the first Grammy nomination for the South Street-based chamber orchestra.
A Far Cry has 17 members—known as “Criers”—who play without a conductor.
“We’re all over the moon at A Far Cry. Getting nominated for a Grammy is one of these moments in a group’s development where years of hard work and faith and support suddenly come together and blossom into something beautiful that everyone can see,” A Far Cry spokesperson Sarah Darling told the Gazette. “It will have a huge impact on the group’s future. It will mean that we can bring what we do, what we believe in, to a greater number of potential listeners, and that’s right at the heart of what we’re always trying to accomplish.”
The Grammys are awards given by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Winners will be announced Feb. 8. Other nominees in the same category as A Far Cry include Hilary Hahn and Cory Smythe; Steven Isserlis and Olli Mustonen; Partch; and New York Polyphony.
Crier Records is the only in-house label represented among Grammy nominees, and “Dreams & Prayers” is the only album in its category to have been funded through a successful Kickstarter campaign. A Far Cry’s campaign raised over $27,000 last year.
A Far Cry shares the nomination with clarinetist David Krakauer.
“Dreams & Prayers,” released in September, combines A Far Cry’s own arrangements of music by Hildegard von Bingen and Ludwig van Beethoven with recent works by Mehmet Ali Sanlikol and Osvaldo Golijov.
Megumi Stohs Lewis, one of the Criers and also the label manager, said in a release, “Crier Records was born from the desire to take A Far Cry’s concert programming to the next level. Having our own label provides the utmost flexibility to create and release our musical experience to the world in a way that is beautiful inside and out, and to find a unique expression for every project.”
The next two releases on Crier Records will be “Law of Mosaics,” featuring music by Ted Hearne and Andrew Norman; and “History of the Night,” a live album drawn from concerts at New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall, featuring “night music” by Mozart, Bartók, Schoenberg and Dvořák.
A Far Cry shares its space with improv troupe Riot Theater at 146A South St. For more information, see afarcry.org.