Elaine Martone is no stranger to the red carpet.
The Shaker Heights resident attended her 13th Grammy Awards Sunday night in Los Angeles and received the award for producer of the year in the classical category.
This is her third win in that category and sixth Grammy overall. She also holds a Latin Grammy Award, which she won in 2006.
“Every time, it's sort of, you float out of your body when they call your name,” Martone said. “It's completely a shot in the dark.”
Martone attended the Grammys with her close friend Erica Brenner, another classical music producer from Cleveland who was nominated in the same category.
Among the nine works included in Martone’s recognition this year are four recordings with the Cleveland Orchestra and Music Director Franz Welser-Möst.
“I’m very proud of those recordings, and I love working with the Cleveland Orchestra,” she said. “They are my no. 1 client and my favorite orchestra.”
Martone’s love for the Cleveland Orchestra is actually what brought her to the area in 1979 after she graduated with a music degree from Ithaca College in upstate New York.
“I wanted to play in the Cleveland Orchestra,” she said. “I was an oboe player. I wanted to be an orchestral musician, and I was not good enough in many, many ways.”
In 1980, she joined the recording label Telarc International, where she spent 29 years as executive vice president of production, specializing in classical and jazz recordings. That’s where she met Robert Woods, who co-founded Telarc and later became her husband.
“I tell people when I'm mentoring them to listen for opportunities, because you don't know which one is going to be the one that takes you on the journey of your lifetime,” Martone said. “For me, it was the recording business.”
