LOS ANGELES - Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Deutsche Grammophon recording of Mahler's Symphony No. 8, has earned the GRAMMY Award for Best Choral Performance at the 64th Annual GRAMMY Awards.
``Mahler's `Symphony of a Thousand' has never felt more relevant than at this moment. When every headline seems to be about violence and division, this towering work takes a massive assembled musical force, and brings it together in an ecstatic, rapturous statement of joyful redemption,'' Dudamel said.
Since its initial 1910 performance, the symphony has been known as the ``Symphony of a Thousand,'' but Dudamel's recording, at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, relies on 346 performers, as the L.A. Phil was joined by the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Pacific Chorale, Los Angeles Children's Chorus and the National Children's Chorus, along with several soloists.
Dudamel ``had the orchestra, chorus and soloists sculpt phrases as though they were questions needing deep investigation. One idea followed the next as in an inexorable argument that, when it reached the end of the movement, was not just physically thrilling but like discovering the inevitable and the ineffable,'' according to the Los Angeles Times.
The symphony received two GRAMMY nominations, the other being for Best Engineered Album, Classical, which highlights both artistic and technical achievement.
The recording is available through Apple Music.