DENTON (WBAP & KLIF News) — The University of North Texas is celebrating success at Sunday night’s 59th Annual Grammy Awards.
Alumni from the school hauled in seven Grammys last night, ranging from as mainstream as country singer Maren Morris, who won a Grammy for best country solo performance, to awards in classical and jazz music.
“It’s humbling and wonderful and inspiring,” said John Richmond, dean of the UNT College of Music. “It’s wonderful when we have alumni that inspire us, and we’re certainly fortunate for that to be the case here at the University of North Texas.”
Aside from being inspired, Richmond says the success Sunday night is a great recruiting tool.
“We make sure that [recruits] understand that this is the case,” Richmond said. “That our students go on to do well in the profession in a variety of contexts.”
Other alumni taking home Grammys include the band Snarky Puppy, who won the award for best contemporary instrumental album, and opera singer Patricia Racette, who sang on an album that won “Best Engineered Classical Album.” Tyler Summers, a Nashville based saxophonist and UNT alum, also won a Grammy for being on the album that won Best Gospel Album.
Composer Michael Daugherty took home three Grammys: Contemporary Classical, Classical Instrumental Solo, and Classical Compendium.
“I was particularly thrilled this year to see the breadth and diversity of the awards,” Richmond said. “From both composition and performance and from the range of jazz to classical to contemporary country. It’s just a wonderful range of kinds of achievement we see represented there. [It’s] awesome.”
Correction: An original version of this story had the number of GRAMMYs won at six. It has been changed to seven.