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Beyond the Red Carpet

Audiences may associate the Grammy Awards with pop superstars and red carpet fashions, but the bestowed almost 100 awards on Feb. 1, covering a multitude of genres, from the coveted Album of the Year to Best Spoken Word Album, which is how former president Barack Obama received his two Grammy Awards.

And while the red carpet was an exciting new experience, what surprised Brown was seeing the machinery behind the awards.

鈥淚t was kind of crazy to see the inner workings, all the press, the media outlets, and how publicists lead the whole thing,鈥� he said.

Even before the ceremony itself, Brown learned about the nomination and voting process.

鈥淢embers are only allowed to vote in three categories, so it鈥檚 more of an honor that we were not only nominated, but that enough people voted for us to win,鈥� he said.

Harmonic landscape

Land of Winter is a 50-minute piece in 12 movements, which each represent a month of the year and Denney鈥檚 interpretation of light in his native Ireland.

鈥淚t is sort of a sonic representation of how light gets filtered in the atmosphere, when the sun rises and sets each day,鈥� Brown said.聽聽

He described Land of Winter as an 鈥渂eautiful, unfamiliar harmonic landscape鈥� for listeners, because Dennehy composes in a system called 鈥渏ust intonation.鈥澛�

鈥淲ithout getting too technical, it鈥檚 the way pitches occur naturally, for example when you divide a string into halves, thirds, quarters, etc. It鈥檚 based on the harmonic series and is different from the 12 equally-spaced notes of the piano,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t provides the listener a different experience than the majority of music we hear today, which is based on this equalized system.鈥澛�

This takes the musician out of the normal orchestral mindset and requires exquisite technique.聽

鈥淚n particular, my part as the bass player is extremely difficult,鈥� Brown said.聽

Some passages push the technical limits of the instrument, especially in the use of high harmonics on the lowest string, where precision leaves very little margin for error. Brown explained that even the most accomplished musicians may have trouble physically playing the notes.聽聽

Limitless voices

Brown said the future looks bright for the award-winning group.聽聽

鈥淲e鈥檙e still going to focus on what got us here in the first place, which is a lot of collaboration and working to uplift composers鈥� voices,鈥� he said. 鈥淎s many people as there are in the world, that鈥檚 as many possible musical voices exist too. There are no limits to the possibilities of what you can achieve with music.鈥�

With members spread across the country from South Carolina to California, Alarm Will Sound perform together only a few times each year.聽

Local audiences can see them perform their on March 13, 2026, at the Zellerbach Theatre in Philadelphia.聽

Listen to excerpts of Land of Winter and other recordings on the group鈥檚 website: