Yannick Nézet-Séguin 'proud and happy' about variety of Grammy wins

Yannick Nézet-Séguin is getting used to this. The Quebec conductor — best known around these parts as leader of Montreal’s Orchestre Métropolitain — won two Grammy Awards on Sunday, just 12 months after he won his first.

His latest Grammys are for best opera recording, for American trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones, with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra; and for best classical solo vocal album, for Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene, on which he provided piano accompaniment to American soprano Renée Fleming.

The trophies will go on the shelf next to last year’s Grammy for best orchestral performance, for Florence Price: Symphonies Nos. 1 and 3, consisting of recordings by the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra of works by the Chicago pianist and composer, who died in 1953.

“I don’t think I really believed I would ever win a Grammy, let alone three,” Nézet-Séguin said Monday.

He is “proud and happy” that the three awards are in different categories, showcasing what he calls his “three lives in music — last year as symphony conductor with the Philadelphia Orchestra, this year as opera conductor with the best opera, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and also as a pianist. To have won Grammys for each of these aspects of my life as an artist is just amazing to me.”

Setting the recordings apart, Nézet-Séguin believes, are the socially significant messages they conveyed.

“Last year, we wanted to restore the works of a pioneering composer and African-American woman from the early 20th century, Florence Price,” he said. “This year, Terence Blanchard is the first African-American composer to be performed at the Met. It was about time, but it’s also my goal and my mission to give the stage more and more to communities who have been under-represented in our art form, and to have a more diverse programming which will be more inclusive of all the audiences that should feel more welcome in our world.

“The album with Renée Fleming is about climate change and our relationship to nature as humankind. So all of these projects have real significance and relevance for our world. To get Grammys for them is great encouragement that keeps me hopeful and confident that this is the right direction to go.”

Nézet-Séguin was nominated for a total of five Grammys on Sunday, proving his vast potential for even more accomplishments and accolades. On his bucket list is to one day win a Grammy with the Orchestre Métropolitain.

“The Orchestre Métropolitain has had a diverse programming for many years now, featuring a lot of women on the podium and composing music, and also featuring artists from our First Nations. All this makes me hopeful that the Orchestre Métropolitain will win Grammys.”

Ubisoft Montreal also had an exciting day on Sunday, as the music for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarok, by American composer and violinist Stephanie Economou, won the first ever Grammy in the category of best score soundtrack for video games and other interactive media.

“We just celebrated 15 years of the Assassin’s Creed brand,” said musical director Simon Landry. “To me, this Grammy is recognition of the game’s impact on the mainstream, and its importance in popular culture. It legitimizes that impact.”

Landry, who hired Economou to compose the score, explained he was looking for a dramatic soundtrack for the game, which plays out like a Greek tragedy.

The score combines elements of black metal, post-rock and Viking metal, Landry noted, expressing delight that the Grammys rewarded such edgy, audacious fare.

And while the award is just one more feather in the cap of Assassin’s Creed, it provides a welcome boost for the franchise going forward.

“We’re legit now,” Landry said.

tdunlevy@postmedia.com

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