University of Miami’s Frost School of Music wins four Grammys
Billie Eilish wasn’t the only big winner at Sunday’s Grammy Awards.
The University of Miami’s Frost School of Music figured in four Grammy victories in the jazz, classical and Latin pop fields.
Brian Lynch, a jazz trumpet professor at Frost’s department of studio music and jazz, won the Grammy for Best Large Jazz Ensemble recording for his band’s “The Omni-American Book Club.”
The album was recorded at the Weeks Recording Studio on
UM’s Coral Gables campus and features the work of Frost students, faculty and alumni.
Lynch, Frost Dean Shelton Berg said, “is one of the world’s greats as a jazz trumpeter, composer, and arranger and richly deserving of the Grammy Award for his innovative, erudite, and most of all, highly artistic recording.”
In a statement, Berg said the “Omni-American Book Club” album offers “the full value of Lynch’s endlessly curious approach to life, imbued with his varied musical influences, from Afro-Cuban to Hard Bop.”
Having it all #FrostBuilt, as the school is touting on social media, is yet another distinction.
“It is a fantastic achievement,” Berg said.
As for Eilish, she’s the youngest artist to sweep the four main general Grammy categories at age 18 — Album, Song, Record and Best New Artist — and the first artist to do so since Christopher Cross managed the feat at the 1981 Grammys. But according to the Insider, the teen reportedly mouthed “please don’t be me” before her fourth award was announced for her “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go” album.
No such reluctance on Lynch’s part. He was elated.
“I am completely blown away and extremely gratified to have been awarded this honor and in such distinguished company!” Lynch said in a statement “This Grammy award for Best Jazz Large Ensemble Album is really an award for all of us here at Frost, for I could not have made this project without the help of everyone here in my Frost family . ... This album was truly ‘Frost Built!’”
Other UM “Frost Built” alumni winners at the 62nd Grammy Awards include:
Cristian Macelaru, a 2003 Frost grad, won Best Classical Instrumental Solo for “Marsalis: Violin Concerto Fiddle Dance Suite.”
Julio Reyes Copello, a 2000 grad, Carlos Fernando Lopez, a 2012 grad, and Natalia Ramirez, a 2017 grad, for their producing, arranging and engineering work on Alejandro Sanz’s album, “El
Disco” in the Best Latin Pop Album category.