Boulez Adds to Growing Collection

In the classical categories, it was mostly a matter of the usual suspects. French conductor-composer Pierre Boulez, who has taken multiple awards for the last two years, added two more Grammys to his collection--for his recording of Debussy with the Cleveland Orchestra, in best classical album and best orchestral performance categories. This puts his lifetime total at 18. Among conductors, only Georg Solti, who wasn’t nominated this year, has a higher total with 30.

More star power: Violinist Itzhak Perlman bested young up-and-comers Maxim Vengerov (violin) and Evgeny Kissin (piano) in the category of solo performance with orchestra. And the celebrity-packed trio of clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, cellist Yo-Yo Ma and pianist Emanuel Ax won for best chamber music performance.

Beating out some heavy-hitting male competition (Roberto Alagna, Wolfgang Holzmair, Sergei Leiferkus and Bryn Terfel), American soprano Sylvia McNair triumphed with a collection of music by Henry Purcell--uncommon programming for a Grammy winner--called “The Echoing Air,� to win best classical vocal performance.

Pianist Radu Lupu also won with the unexpected: two Schubert sonatas (best instrumental soloist performance without orchestra).

In the opera category, the front-runner, Berlioz’s “Les Troyens,� conducted by Charles Dutoit and the Montreal Symphony, won over Mozart, Rossini and Borodin.

Surprisingly, classical music won in the jazz and R&B-packed; best historical album category. The “Heifetz Collection,� documenting violinist Jascha Heifetz’s nearly century-spanning career, bested early Duke Ellington, the box set “30 Years of Rhythm and Blues,� and the complete John Coltrane Atlantic recordings, as well as “Live at the BBC.�