Steinhardt's own Herschel Garfein and composer Robert Aldridge shared the award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition and Best Engineered Classical Recording for Garfein's new American opera, “ELMER GANTRY.”

NYU Steinhardt Professor of Music, Herschel Garfein, Takes Home A Grammy Award for American Opera, “Elmer Gantry”
Steinhardt's Herschel Garfein at 54th Annual GRAMMY Awards.

Herschel Garfein, adjunct professor of music composition within the NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, is the winner of a GRAMMY Award for his new American opera, “ELMER GANTRY.” Lyric and book writer Garfein and composer Robert Aldridge shared the award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition. The Naxos recording also won Best Engineered Classical Recording. Garfein accepted his award on Sunday, Feb. 12 at the 54th Annual GRAMMY Awards in Los Angeles.

“It's tremendously gratifying for ELMER GANTRY to have won two GRAMMY awards this year," said Garfein. “It's a true "indie" opera. My collaborator Bob Aldridge and I struggled for 17 years to get this opera produced, with no money, no commission and no fancy opera companies supporting us. The recording represents an enormous joint effort on the part of a great regional opera company Florentine Opera of Milwaukee, a first-rate regional American orchestra, The Milwaukee Symphony, an incredible cast of young American singers, and an independent, cutting-edge record label, Naxos. I hope that it is a sign of things to come in the opera world.”

Garfein is an adjunct instructor within NYU Steinhardt’s Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions. He teaches private composition lessons and courses in script analysis and dramaturgical process.

To learn more about the NYU Steinhardt and the Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions, visit: http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/music.

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