Mackey wins Grammy for Best Small Ensemble Performance

Music professor Steven Mackey and collaborators Rinde Eckert and eighth blackbird won the 2011 Grammy for Best Small Ensemble Performance. The collective’s 11-track album, Lonely Motel: Music from “Slide,” was nominated in four categories, including a Best Contemporary Composition nod for Mackey. Drawn from a music theater piece that premiered at the 2009 Ojai (Calif.) Music Festival, the album features Mackey on electric guitar, Eckert on vocals, and the new-age sextet eighth blackbird on instrumentals.

 

Mackey, the chairman of the University’s music department, began his musical career as a rock guitarist and has composed music for orchestras, chamber ensembles, dance, and opera. He joined the Princeton faculty in 1985.

 

Below, listen to a brief excerpt from Lonely Motel: Music from “Slide.”