UO Alum Cassandra Ewer ’87 Wins 2009 Grammy
Soprano Cassandra Ewer (B.Mus. 1987) won a 2009 Grammy Award as a featured soloist on Spotless Rose: Hymns to the Virgin Mary with the Phoenix Chorale, Charles Briffy, conductor. The CD won in the Best Small Ensemble Performance category. Released in September 2008, Spotless Rose is an international anthology and one of few discs featuring 20th and 21st century musical settings of ancient texts on the Virgin Mary. The album features noted American composers, including Stephen Paulus and Jean Belmont Ford.
Besides Spotless Rose, Cassandra was on two other recordings that received Grammy nominations: a CD ofmusic by Joseph Rhineberger which she recorded with the Phoenix Chorale and the Kansas City Chorale, nominated for Best Surround Sound and Best Choral Performance; and Threshold of Night, which she recorded with Conspirare, nominated for Best Classical and Best Choral Performance.
Cassandra has been a member of the Phoenix Chorale since moving to Arizona in 1994. She has sung with professional orchestras in solo appearances as well as with professional choirs throughout the U.S., Europe, Russia, and Canada. Her professional appearances have included concerts in Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center, and the Copenhagen Opera House at the 2008 World Choral Symposium in Denmark.
During her ten seasons with the Oregon Bach Festival chorus, Cassandra performed with the Hilliard Ensemble in the premiere of Arvo Pärt’s Litany, and sang on the 2000 Grammy-winning CD, Credo by Krzysztof Penderecki. She is a featured performer on several internationally-distributed recordings, including the recent Grammy winner Grechaninov: Passion Week, as well as the Grammy-nominated Conspirare CD, Requiem: We are so Lightly Here. She performs regularly with Conspirare, The Phoenix Chorale, American Bach, Musica Sonora, and the Tucson St. Andrew’s Bach Society. Cassandra and her husband Richard Ewer (B.Mus. 1989) live in Phoenix, AZ, where Richard is an accomplished composer.
» Learn More about this award at 2009 Grammys