A Cleveland guy, a Cleveland gal

Angelin Chang won a Grammy Award Sunday for "Best Instrumental Soloist with Orchestra" for a recording of Olivier Messiaen's "Oiseaux Exotiques" with the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, conducted by John McLaughlin Williams. The Grammy goes to the soloist and the conductor, so it went to Chang (of Cleveland State University) and Williams (who lives in Shaker Heights, a Cleveland suburb).

Here is a photo of Chang after she got her award.



I don't have a photo I can use of John McLaughlin Williams getting his Grammy, but here is a still. Isn't it annoying when someone takes a good picture?


Critic Alex Ross hailed the Grammy on his blog. Ross wrote, "Among various worthy people who won Grammys last night, I'd like to single out John McLaughlin Williams and the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, who won for a recording (with pianist Angelin Chang) of Messiaen's Oiseaux exotiques. The Cleveland group recently sprang back to life after having been declared dead, and Williams is a long-time advocate of unsung composers. In 2003, he led a performance in Cleveland of Ervín Schulhoff's jazz oratorio HMS Royal Oak — a delightfully quirky piece that deserves to be on recording...."