CIM celebrates alumni success at 2023 Grammy Awards

Sunday, Feb. 5 was an uncommonly great day for CIM.  

Hours after CIM hosted its first round of live auditions for the 2023-24 school year, projects featuring three CIM alumni won Grammy Awards in Los Angeles.  

Two CIM alums took home prizes for their work on “Caroline Shaw: Evergreen,” the winner for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance.  

CIM’s own recording arts and services director Alan Bise (BM ’94, Knab) produced and engineered the album, while violinist Domenic Salerni (BM ’09, L. Cerone/Preucil) is a member of the Attacca Quartet, the album’s featured ensemble.  

"I'm thrilled to bring home another Grammy Award to Cleveland,” Bise said, with a nod to Salerni. “My education at CIM and my teachers Tom Knab (BM ’81) and Bruce Egre (’85-’87) provided the foundation for my professional success. My own students today, as well as my colleagues, inspire me daily. " 

Pianist Michelle Cann (BM ’09, MM ’10, Schenly/D. Shapiro) wasn’t officially named in the Best Orchestral Performance category, but CIM regards her as a winner nonetheless. 

On the winning album, a recording by the New York Youth Symphony of works by Florence Price, Jessie Montgomery and Valerie Coleman, Cann is the featured soloist, along with conductor Michael Repper. Cann is a champion of the music of Florence Price. CIM percussion student Angelo Antinori (Weiner/Yancich/Haddad) also appears on the album, as a member of the NYYS. 

Three other CIM-related projects had received nominations but did not win: the Dover Quartet’s second Beethoven Quartets album, also produced and engineered by Bise, Musical Remembrances by the Neave Trio, with pianist Eri Nakamura (PS ’08 Babayan; AD ’11 Babayan/Pontremoli), and Bach: The Art of Life, by pianist Daniil Trifonov. (AC ’13, AD ’15, Babayan).  

Congratulations to all! You are living out the CIM standard of excellence and proving to the world that CIM is the future of classical music.