Artists With O.C. Roots Win Grammys

Two musicians with Orange County roots, opera singer Deborah Voigt and composer and jazz bandleader Bill Holman, won Grammy Awards on Wednesday.

Holman said Thursday that the Grammy he received for best instrumental composition, for his work “A View From the Side,” sneaked up on him from . . . well, the side.

“I also had a nomination for best performance by a large group, and I was more focused on that because it was for my band,” said Holman, who was born in Olive, grew up in Orange and Santa Ana and now lives in the Hollywood Hills. “I wasn’t thinking too much about this one. It really was a shock. I thought, ‘Oh god, I don’t have anything to say.’ ”

Nevertheless, in picking up his second Grammy (he won in 1987 for best instrumental arrangement) Holman said he was particularly happy because “A View From the Side” is “a little bit of a departure for me. Most of my recorded stuff has been pretty mainstream. This is a little to the left. That’s why I called it ‘A View From the Side.’ It’s kind of gratifying that people will accept something that’s a little different.”

Voigt, a former resident of Anaheim and Placentia who emerged in the 1990s as the first major opera star to come from Orange County, was principal soloist on Berlioz’s “Les Troyens” with conductor Charles Dutoit and the Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal, named best opera recording.

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Voigt, reached between rehearsals at the Metropolitan Opera, said that though she has several recordings on the market, “I was particularly proud of this one, primarily because it is in French, and my repertory doesn’t encompass a lot of French music. Dutoit was adamant about having native French speakers, and Gary Lakes [also a principal soloist] and I were the only ones on the recording who are not.”

Voigt attended Cal State Fullerton; she’ll receive the CSUF Distinguished Alumni Award on March 23, even though she never graduated. She decided instead to accept a scholarship from the San Francisco Opera.

“It may be that they haven’t figured that out yet,” Voigt said with a chuckle.