Grammy® for Best Surround Sound Album

Keith O. Johnson and David Frost win Grammy® for Best Surround Sound Album Britten’s Orchestra  (RR-120SACD)

Reference Recordings "Prof." KEITH O. JOHNSON and producer DAVID FROST have won this Grammy for their first release in Surround Sound. Winners were announced by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) at the 53rd Annual GRAMMY® Awards on Sunday, February 13, 2011, at Staples Center in Los Angeles. All nominations were for albums released from September 1, 2009 to September 30, 2010.  

“Keith is a phenomenal engineer and we are thrilled about his win,” says Reference Recordings partner and executive producer Marcia Martin. “Everyone at RR is delighted that he and David have been honored by their peers in the music industry for this achievement. Keith’s collaboration with David Frost was a great success and we look forward to their next project when they return to the Kansas City Symphony in May to record the Enigma Variations by Elgar and The Wasps by Vaughan Williams.” 

Congratulations to all who were instrumental in bringing this outstanding album to life:

Kansas City Symphony, Conductor: Michael Stern

Executive Director: Frank Byrne

Producer: David Frost (also Grammy winner for Producer of the Year, Classical) Engineer: Keith O. Johnson

Reference Recordings Staff: Tam Henderson, Marcia Martin, Sean Martin, Bill Roarty, Janice Mancuso.

And very special thanks to all the Sponsors of the Kansas City Symphony, without whom this recording could not have been made. 

Category 94

Best Surround Sound Album

For vocal or instrumental albums. Albums only.

BRITTEN'S ORCHESTRA (Benjamin Britten: The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra; Sinfonia da requiem; Peter Grimes: Four Sea Interludes and Passacaglia)

Keith O. Johnson, surround mix engineer; Keith O. Johnson,

surround mastering engineer; David Frost, surround producer

(Michael Stern & Kansas City Symphony)

[Reference Recordings]

www.ReferenceRecordings.com

About Reference Recordings:

For 35 years, Reference Recordings has been one of the most innovative and respected independent labels in the music business. Founded on the premise that most commercial recordings sound nothing like the live performance experience, Reference Recordings productions have been widely and lavishly praised for their dedication to high quality sound in the service of great music. In 1978, founder Tam Henderson began working with engineer Keith O. Johnson, who was already becoming an audio legend for his innovative approach to realistic recordings. Some 120 discs later, RR is still recording what many consider to be the finest-sounding classical and jazz discs in the world. 

  

Reference Recordings has now won three Grammy Awards and many other nominations, including a nomination for Henderson as Producer of the Year in 1998 and seven nominations for Johnson for Best Engineered Album. In addition, RR has received numerous awards and citations from industry organizations and publications. RR has recorded many world premieres, and has pioneered many technological innovations—most recently the introduction of HRx, high resolution digital files for home music servers, and the widely praised HDCD digital encoding process (co-invented by Keith O. Johnson).  

About Keith O. Johnson:

Keith  has been Technical Director of Reference Recordings since 1980. Early on, he applied his well-practiced recording methods with half speed mastering expertise from Stan Ricker to spawn exceptional phonograph record releases that received numerous awards and continue to be the best of their kind. With producer and RR founder Tam Henderson, Johnson continues to record and release the finest quality compact discs, which now total over 120 titles. 

To improve the compact disc, he was a founding partner in Pacific Microsonics where he contributed important parts of the HDCD process. Johnson’s ideas: morphing filters, hidden codes in dither, conversion sequences or pipelines are amongst the first of their kind. Unparalleled conversion accuracy is manifest in the Model 1 and Model 2 HDCD encoders, which most consider second-to-none. Microsoft bought the company and hired Johnson as their consultant, and while working for them he invented a speaker correction method to remove object related sounds. Johnson helped Microsoft develop a system based on generic speaker models and simplified files that is bundled with Windows XP software to improve computer speaker sound. 

His invited participation in the UCLA School of Recording Arts planning committees helped emphasize technical and perceptual aspects of music production. He also continues to work with educational and historical committees for NARAS.  

Johnson has been a prolific designer of pro and consumer audio equipment.  The manufacturer Spectral Inc. has produced high-end audio equipment from his designs for decades. Many of the most expensive audio and home theater installations feature this equipment due to their unmatched performance.  

Some of the many awards for Johnson’s work include 3 Grammy winning releases, 7 nominations for Best Engineered Classical Recording, a Silver Medal (Lifetime Achievement Award) from the Audio Engineering Society, the 2010 Founders Award from the Los Angeles and Orange County Audio Society, 2 NAIRD Indy winners for Best Recording, 2 Absolute Sound Golden Ear awards and 3 awards from the Academy for the Advancement of High Performance Audio. 

Multi-channel processing for large screen sound is a currently a great interest for Johnson. He is also investigating and consulting on hearing physiology and hearing correction. He plays keyboard instruments and is a competitive middle distance runner and Senior Olympian.