Four Artists with Colorado Ties Earn Grammy Nominations

Jazz and classical artists from Colorado received Grammy nominations.

December 8, 2018

Aurora native Tia Fuller earned a Grammy for Diamond Cut. Jerris Madison

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The nominations for the 61st Annual Grammy Awards were announced Friday, and four artists with Colorado ties were included: jazz artists Tia Fuller and Ron Miles, and classical artists Don McKinney and Wei Wu.

Fuller, an alto saxophonist who grew up in a musical family in Aurora, nabbed a nomination for Best Jazz Instrumental Album for Diamond Cut, a project that includes jazz heavies like drummer Jack DeJohnette and Dave Holland. Once part of Beyoncé’s all-female band, Fuller is now a full-time professor at the Berklee College of Music.

Jazz cornetist Miles shares a nomination for Best Jazz Instrumental Album for Still Dreaming with saxophonist Joshua Redman, drummer Brian Blade and bassist Scott Colley. Redman formed the band to pay homage to Old and New Dreams, the group his father, the saxophonist Dewey Redman, helmed in the ’70s and ’80s.

McKinney, a University of Colorado Boulder director of bands and associate professor of conducting, was nominated for Best Classical Compendium for producing the Dallas Winds recording John Williams at the Movies.

Wu, a CU College of Music alumnus, was nominated for two recordings related to Mason Bates’s opera, The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, in the Best Opera Recording and Best Contemporary Classical Composition categories.

See the full list of Grammy nominations here.

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