Grammy Awards Change Musical Category from Show to Theatre

In the past two decades, the Grammy Award that many theatre fans take note of has been known as "Best Musical Show Album", and has been awarded to Broadway casts along with the producers and composers who helped to put the show on the Great White Way. Is that about to change? Based on the newly announced category restructuring for the 2012 Grammys, at least one part of the award will change: it will now be entitled "Best Musical Theater Album" in an effort to widen the category.

According to the official Grammys explanation for the change, "While the Field and Category remain intact in every way, it was determined that new name for it would be a more accurate description of appropriate entries here and may help to encourage entries from non-Broadway musical theater production recordings."

"Every year, we diligently examine our Awards structure to develop an overall guiding vision and ensure that it remains a balanced and viable process," said Academy president Neil Portnow at a press conference this morning. "After careful and extensive review and analysis of all Categories and Fields, it was objectively determined that our GRAMMY Categories be restructured to the continued competition and prestige of the highest and only peer-recognized award in music. Our Board of Trustees continues to demonstrate its dedication to keeping The Recording Academy a pertinent and responsive organization in our dynamic music community."

For 53 years, The Recording Academy has recognized musical excellence with the GRAMMY Awards - the most prestigious and only peer-recognized award in music - and the awards have grown from 28 Categories in 1959, to awards in 109 Categories for the most recent 53rd GRAMMYs. This growth springs from a tradition of honoring specific genres and/or subgenres within a Field, and it has basically been approached one Category at a time without a current overall guiding vision and without consistency across the various genre Fields. In 2009, The Academy initiated a first-ever comprehensive evaluation of its Awards process, which led to a desire for change. A transformation of the entire Awards structure would ensure that all Fields would be treated with parity. Diligent research, careful analysis, and thoughtful discussion of all Fields resulted in an overarching framework and a restructuring of Categories to 78, and ensures that every submission continues to have a home.