By EILEEN FELDMAN
Leader managing editor
Former Cabot resident Laura Inman is featured on “Life and Breath: the Music of Rene Clausen,” which garnered two Grammy awards Sunday for the Phoenix Chorale’s artistic director, Charles Bruffy.
Inman, who has been a part of two other Grammy awarding-winning albums, said it was exciting and gives the groups a chance to expose their music to the public.
“Once people hear it they fall in love with it. It’s beautiful music and singing and wonderful direction,” she said.
Bruffy won for his work on the album with the Kansas City Chorale, according to a story in the Phoenix daily paper, the Arizona Republic.
Dr. Inman, who has a doctorate in choral conducting, is a 1995 Cabot High School graduate and the daughter of Paula Inman and the late Dr. Fred Inman of Cabot and the granddaughter of the late Dr. Fred and Sara Inman of Carlisle.
She has been nominated for a Grammy 10 times on four different albums.
“The first time we won a Grammy was in 2007 with a joint recording of the Phoenix and Kansas City chorales. Then in 2008 we won Best Small Ensemble Performance with an album released by the Phoenix Chorale,” she said.
“There have been just so many talented people I’ve been able to work with and learn from and it has added to the depth of my life,” she said.
Inman is assistant professor and conductor of choral and vocal ensembles and vocal studies at Georgia Tech School of Music in Atlanta, moving there this past year from Phoenix.
She sang with the Phoenix Chorale for 11 years and was often a guest singer in the Kansas City group. Both chorales are directed by the same conductor.
An interview in the Georgia Tech School of Music Website Nique.net noted that “Life and Breath” was nominated for two Grammy awards for best chorale performance and best engineering on the Chandos record label.
It won Grammys for both.
Inman said, “The nominees were announced Dec. 5. I had actually just landed in Dublin, where I was singing in a three-week tour with the Irish group Anúna, I didn’t have internet access for nearly a day after the news broke. I was thrilled when I heard and so happy for Kansas City. It’s always an honor to be nominated among so many amazing musicians and to participate in the festivities.”
Inman said in the interview, “I’ve been involved in music as long as I can remember. My family was very musical, played various instruments, sang in choirs, and we always had a variety of music blaring from the speakers, from Béla Fleck to Bach. I began studying voice seriously at the University of Louisville, where I earned a degree in music education, as I’ve always loved to teach. I continued studies at Arizona State University and earned a master’s and doctorate in conducting.”
“Phoenix was a fantastic place for me as a singer, as well,” she continued. “Shortly after moving to Arizona, I auditioned and sang for 11 years in a professional choir, the Phoenix Chorale, directed by the extraordinary Charles Bruffy. Charles also conducted the Kansas City Chorale, which is how I became connected with the group,” she said.
Inman will be joining a Manhattan chorale and will tour New York and Chicago in May and April. She’ll also sing with the Irish group again.
She holds degrees from the University of Louisville and Arizona State University, where she recently completed her doctorate. Dr. Inman served two years as the assistant director of the Phoenix Symphony Chorus and served five years on faculty at Veritas Preparatory Academy in Phoenix.
As a professional singer, she sang 11 seasons as a soprano in the Grammy Award-winning Phoenix Chorale. She appeared on the Phoenix Chorale’s two Grammy Award-winning albums, “Grechaninov: Passion Week” and “Spotless Rose” and also on the Grammy-nominated album “Rheinberger: Sacred Choral Works.”
She also appears on the Phoenix Chorale’s newest album featuring the music of Ola Gjeilo and the Kansas City Chorale’s newest album featuring the music of Rene Clausen, both released this spring.
She performed with the Phoenix Chorale at Lincoln Center and in South Korea at the Incheon International Choral Festival.
Dr. Inman received her doctorate in choral conducting in 2008 from the Arizona State School of Music in Tempe, Ariz. She is a member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing, Chorus America and the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
Leader staff writer Rick Kron contributed to this report.
