You never know who you’re brushing up against when you walk city streets.
“I know how to shut out the frantic pace so that I can concentrate because I have to live in this big bustling city,” said Allison Charney.
That somebody could be a first-time Grammy nominee, like Charney, 58, has become.
After two decades focused on raising her children, the Upper West Side native is stepping back into the spotlight with her first Grammy nomination this year for best classical solo vocal album for “ALIKE – My Mother’s Dream.”
The soprano, who has performed leading roles with the New York City Opera in “La Bohème,” “Carmen” and “Magic Flute,” paused her intense travel schedule 20 years ago when her sons were born.
“It’s a very personal and self-involved experience to sing and to be a singer. And being a mother is just the exact polar opposite. It is the opposite of self-involved. It is completely other involved, and so bridging that difference has been a challenge, an exciting challenge,” Charney said.
Even while away from full-time performing, Charney found ways to nurture connections with audiences through “PREformances,” pre-concert events where she hosts other artists who perform and speak with fans.
“[People ask] if my kids stopped my career, having my kids stopped my career and stopped my singing — and instead I would say they’ve given me something to sing about,” she said.
Charney now sings about finding the connection between all people.
“On this album we have the country pairs, a piece composed by a Russian, one by a Ukrainian, one by an Iranian, one by an Israeli — my point being that their music belongs perfectly right next to each other on my album just as I believe these people belong next to each other on planet Earth, living together in peace,” she said.
Her family — two sons ages 20 and 18, her husband and her parents — will join her at the 68th Annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday, a journey she says she is humbled by.
“The idea that enough of my peers voted for me, and for this album, for whatever their reasons were, really wanted us to be in this situation feels so profound to me, and so humbling, and I feel so grateful to each and every one of them,” Charney said.
Charney said the album has also been a learning experience.
“At our core, most people really do want the same things. And so in fact, striving to find what makes us alike should not be that difficult. It might not be that hard to find something in common with another human being who probably would like peace on Earth and enough food to eat and shelter for their children,” she said.
Charney is nominated alongside conductor and friend Benjamin Loeb, her collaborator of 37 years from college. It is Loeb’s first Grammy nomination as well.
The 68th Annual Grammy Awards air Sunday at 8 p.m. on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
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