A new album of music by Tarik O’Regan, a former student of Corpus Christi College and current Fellow of Trinity College, has been nominated for two awards at this year’s Grammy Awards.

His disc ‘Threshold of Night’, performed by Conspirare and conducted by Craig Hella Johnson, is nominated in the ‘Best Classical Album’ and ‘Best Choral Album’ categories. Another new O’Regan album, ‘Scattered Rhymes’, also features as part of Robina G. Young’s ‘Producer of the Year’ portfolio.

‘Threshold of Night’, an album of new works for strings and voices reflecting the cultural plurality of today’s urban environment, debuted at #10 in the American Billboard chart. It was named ‘record of the month’ by Stereophile Magazine and in its review of the disc the BBC described Tarik’s music as “striking, intense, captivating”.

On discovering his nominations, Tarik said: "I'm delighted! There are a great number of people who ought to be thanked and who share fully in the honour of my disc being nominated. Most of all, I'm happy that it's a disc of ‘contemporary’ classical compositions which has been recognised in the Classical Album of the Year category, alongside Schoenberg and Sibelius.

“At a time when we have more music available at our fingertips than at any other point in our history, it's very important to recognise that classical composers are still felt to be contemporary and that contemporary popular musicians (rock bands, for example) are still deemed to be composers. The Grammy Awards is the one place where these disparate strands of the music industry are tied together."

The earliest piece on the disc, 'Care Charminge Sleepe', was written when he did his M.Phil. at Corpus Christi College in 1999/2000 under the supervision of Robin Holloway, to whom the piece is dedicated.

Following the completion of his MPhil Tarik was appointed Composer in Residence for one year at Corpus Christi College. He is now Fellow Commoner in the Creative Arts at Trinity College and divides his time between Cambridge and New York City, where he moved in 2003.

His compositions have already earned him two British Composer Awards and have been performed internationally by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and Los Angeles Master Chorale.

2009 marks the 51st year of the Grammys and Tarik will discover if he has won at the awards ceremony to be held at the Staples Centre in Los Angeles, on Sunday 8 February. He joins other nominated British artists including Radiohead, Robert Plant, Coldplay, Paul McCartney, Duffy and Adele.

Picture Credit: Marion Ettlinger

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