Boston Symphony Orchestra Albums Earn Four 2026 GRAMMY® Award Nominations

The Boston Symphony Orchestra’s latest recordings on the Deutsche Grammophon label—Messiaen: Turangalîla-Symphonie, Shostakovich: The Cello Concertos, Shostakovich: The Piano Concertos, and Shostakovich: Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District—garnered a total of four GRAMMY nominations earlier today and three for its music director, Andris Nelsons. It is the most nominations awarded this year to a single orchestra.

These nominations follow on the recent success of the orchestra’s acclaimed traversal of the complete symphonies of Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich, which had already earned four GRAMMY Awards; the BSO has won thus far a total of 11 GRAMMY Awards during its distinguished history. The 68th GRAMMY Awards will take place on Sunday, February 1.

Captured at Boston’s Symphony Hall in April 2024, the BSO’s DG recording of Messiaen’s monumental Turangalîla-Symphonie was recognized for a GRAMMY nomination under the category of Best Orchestral Performance. Music Director Andris Nelsons were joined by pianist and exclusive DG artist Yuja Wang and by Cécile Lartigau, one of today’s rare ondes Martenot players. The recording was released on December 6, 2024, marking the 75th anniversary of the world premiere given by the BSO and Leonard Bernstein on December 2, 1949. The work was commissioned by then-Music Director Serge Koussevitzky.

Earlier this year, on March 26, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the composer’s death, DG released the BSO’s comprehensive 19-disc Shostakovich anthology, which contained all 15 symphonies, key incidental works, as well as new recordings of the complete concertos and the first commercial audio release in over 20 years of the composer’s landmark opera, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. The recordings of the piano and cello concertos, featuring Yuja Wang and Yo-Yo Ma, respectively, were issued as standalone recordings with both receiving GRAMMY nominations today for Best Classical Instrument Solo. (Wang’s CD also includes performances of Shostakovich’s Preludes and Fugues for solo piano.)  

All the BSO’s recent DG Shostakovich recordings—including the BSO’s dramatic 2023 performance of Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, featuring soprano Kristine Opolais, bass Günther Groissböck, and tenors Peter Hoare and Brenden Gunnel—were recorded by a team headed by legendary Hollywood producer Shawn Murphy and BSO lead recording engineer Nick Squire. Today, along with mastering engineer Tim Martyn, they received GRAMMY nominations for Best Engineered Album, Classical, for Lady Macbeth. (In 2019, the same team won GRAMMYs for the BSO’s recording of Shostakovich’s Symphonies Nos. 4 and 11.)

Quote from Andris Nelsons, BSO Music Director:

“I am immensely proud of everyone at the Boston Symphony Orchestra for their fantastic work on these recordings. To receive these nominations from the GRAMMY Recording Academy is testament to the hard work and outstanding skill of each and every musician in the orchestra. I would like to thank our wonderful soloists Yuja Wang and Yo-Yo Ma, as well as the cast of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk for being such inspiring creative partners. Finally, I would like to thank and congratulate the team at Deutsche Grammophon, our amazing recording engineers and producers, and everyone involved in bringing these recordings to life.”

Quote from Chad Smith, BSO President and CEO:

"The BSO is one of the most recorded orchestras in the world and its earliest offering, from 1917, was the first of its kind by an American orchestra. Today, we are thrilled that this tradition of excellence and innovation continues to be recognized by the Recording Academy.  My hearty congratulations to our music director, Andris Nelsons, the musicians of the BSO, our dear friends, Yo-Yo Ma and Yuja Wang and the technical teams who so expertly capture that singular BSO sound."