Dawn Upshaw, Class of 1982

Illinois Wesleyan Alumna Dawn Upshaw Wins Grammy

Feb. 9, 2004

Soprano Dawn Upshaw, a 1982 graduate of Illinois Wesleyan University, won a Grammy for the best Chamber Music Performance during the 46th Annual Grammy Awards on Feb. 8 in Los Angeles.

Upshaw was the soloist with the San Francisco-based Kronos Quartet for the Nonesuch recording of Alban Berg's Lyric Suite.

The Grammy is Upshaw's third. She previously won Grammys as Best Classical Vocal Soloist in 1989 and in 1991. The 1989 award was for the album, "Knoxville — Summer of 1915" (Music of Barber, Menotti, Harbison, Stravinsky). In 1991, the Grammy was awarded for the "The Girl With Orange Lips."

Upshaw’s 1991 recording of Henryk Górecki's "Symphony No. 3," subtitled "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs," performed by the London Sinfonietta conducted by David Zinman, won a Gramophone Award in 1993 for Classical Recording of the Year. The disc has the distinction of being the only classical recording by a living composer to ever sell over a million copies in the history of recorded music.

The New York Times has described Upshaw as possessing a "radiant lyric voice at the constant service of a poetic imagination." The Los Angeles Times has written: "All the music world…loves Dawn Upshaw…[for] her versatility, her ingenuity, her questing mind, her exquisite tone, her dazzling technique or—best of all—her emotional directness."

After receiving her B.A. from Illinois Wesleyan, Upshaw pursued vocal training with Ellen Faull at the Manhattan School of Music in New York, receiving the M.A. in 1984. She was the recipient of an honorary doctorate from Illinois Wesleyan and is also an honorary trustee of the University.