Winning Gold

Carnegie Mellon University alumnae Patina Miller and Shauna Quill won their first Grammy Awards on Feb. 5 as part of this year’s ceremony.

Patina won for her work as the Witch in “Into the Woods,” which won for Best Musical Theater Album.

After a sold-out limited engagement run at New York City Center Encores!, the revival of this celebrated Stephen Sondheim musical moved to Broadway, where it twice extended its run. The album features Miller as the Witch, Sara Bareilles as the Baker’s Wife, Brian d’Arcy James as the Baker, and Phillipa Soo as Cinderella.

She graduated from the College of Fine Arts School of Drama with a bachelor’s degree in drama in 2006.

Shauna serves as the executive director of the New York Youth Symphony, which won for Best Orchestral Performance.

Though the COVID-19 pandemic caused the cancelation of the symphony's scheduled Carnegie Hall performance in 2020, they kept making music.

A 1997 graduate of the College of Fine Arts School of Music, Shauna remembers the start of the award-winning recording project back in 2020.

“The recording was made when performance wasn’t possible — even being in the same room with the 100-person orchestra wasn’t possible,” says Shauna, who holds a bachelor’s degree in flute performance. “Anyone who took courses in music recording and engineering with (Teaching Professor and Director of Recording Activities) Riccardo Schulz at CMU will know it took quite a feat to make this recording work.”

The Youth Symphony, comprised of musicians ranging in age from 12 to 22, notched a major achievement simply by being nominated for a Grammy against the likes of the Berlin Philharmonic and Los Angeles Philharmonic.

The night of the Grammys, the symphony’s young musicians waited expectantly as they watched the live broadcast, gathered in their rehearsal room. As their category came up, “The Grammy goes to... ‘The Works of…’”

The remainder of the announcement was inaudible over the cheers and shrieks of the ecstatic youths.

They became the very first youth orchestra to ever win a Grammy Award, for their untitled album featuring the works of three Black female composers: Florence Price, Jessie Montgomery and Valerie Coleman. It took a major effort by conductor Michael Repper, producer Judith Sherman (who also won a Grammy for Producer of the Year, Classical) and engineer Isaiah Abolin in order to put the many individual recordings together to create the final product.

For Shauna, the historic win provided an opportunity to reflect on how Carnegie Mellon influenced her path.

“My memories of CMU are filled with gratitude for the tremendous faculty who allowed a transfer student like me to explore my many different interests,” Shauna says.

“I remember loving taking piano lessons and dance classes — even though I was a flute major — and reading through incredible orchestral works (in a repertoire class with Associate Professor of Oboe Cynthia DeAlmeida). I love that while some (CMU alumni) are performing and teaching, others are tackling water and environmental issues in Michigan or are working in arts administration like me."

"It's an amazing community of people, and CMU is our lifelong bond.”