Alisa Weilerstein, Yo-Yo Ma, Los Angeles Master Chorale & Yuja Wang
2026 GRAMMY Winners
Congratulations to the 2026 GRAMMY winners Yo-Yo Ma, Los Angeles Master Chorale, Yuja Wang, and Alisa Weilerstein.
Best Choral Performance
Ortiz: Yanga
Gustavo Dudamel, conductor; Grant Gershon, chorus master (Los Angeles Philharmonic; Los Angeles Master Chorale)
Best Classical Instrumental Solo
Shostakovich: The Cello Concertos
Yo-Yo Ma; Andris Nelsons, conductor (Boston Symphony Orchestra)
Best Contemporary Classical Composition
Ortiz: Dzonot
Gabriela Ortiz, composer (Alisa Weilerstein, Gustavo Dudamel & Los Angeles Philharmonic)
Best Orchestral Performance
Messiaen: Turangalîla-Symphonie
Andris Nelsons, conductor (Boston Symphony Orchestra) (Featuring Yuja Wang)
Yanga marks the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s second album with composer Gabriela Ortiz, following her triple-GRAMMY-winning Revolución diamantina (2024).
The title track for chorus, percussion ensemble, and orchestra is based on the life of Mexican freedom fighter Gaspar Yanga. The album also features Ortiz’s cello concerto Dzonot, inspired by the cenotes of the Yucatán Peninsula. The work was commissioned by the LA Phil and written for cellist Alisa Weilerstein, who gave the world premiere at Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2024 to wide acclaim.
“[On Dzonot], Weilerstein realizes all the prismatic excitement of a top-shelf Ortiz work; the cellist produces a singing tone in one movement, crisp percussive bounce in another, then more roughly hewed sounds for frenetic climaxes.”
The New York Times
The Boston Symphony Orchestra’s recording of Shostakovich’s two cello concertos coincides with the 50th anniversary of the composer’s death in 1975 and is part of an upcoming anthology bringing together the BSO’s decade-long, GRAMMY Award-winning Shostakovich project. Yo-Yo Ma gives inspired performances of the two cello concertos. The famously demanding First and the introspective Second, which was the composer’s 60th-birthday present to himself. Yo-Yo Ma says about the work: “This piece is as relevant today as it was then. I think Shostakovich’s artistic truth was to represent the voice of the voiceless.”
Captured at Boston’s Symphony Hall in April 2024, Messiaen’s monumental Turangalîla-Symphonie was one of the centerpieces of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s “Music of the Senses” Festival, aimed at expanding the audience experience through music that plays with color, light, sound, and time. The BSO and its Music Director Andris Nelsons were joined on stage by pianist Yuja Wang and by Cécile Lartigau, one of today’s rare ondes Martenot players.