A piano composition written by UTC Professor Jonathan McNair is featured on a Grammy-nominated classical album.
McNair, the Ruth S. Holmberg Professor of American Music, has taught at UTC for 26 years. His piece, “Rabun Gap,” is included on “Piano Crosscurrents,” an album by New York-based pianist and composer Max Lifchitz, founder of the North/South Consonance Ensemble.
The ensemble, created more than 40 years ago, is dedicated to performing and recording works by contemporary composers from across the Americas.
Supported by a UTC faculty development grant, McNair’s composition was professionally recorded and added to “Piano Crosscurrents,” which debuted in April 2025.
“He nailed it,” McNair said. “The sound is gorgeous. It was a wonderful studio and a really good engineer.”
Click here to listen to “Piano Crosscurrents.” Winners will be announced at the 67th Annual Grammy Awards on Feb. 2, 2026, at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.
When Lifchitz reached out with the news that the album had received a Grammy nomination, McNair said he was completely caught off guard.
“Never crossed my mind,” he said with a laugh. “I never expected this, and I’m happy. I’m grateful it’s not going to go to my head because I had no idea how the nomination came about."
Receiving a Grammy nomination in the classical music world is a significant honor, McNair said, even though it may not come with the same level of public attention as it does for mainstream artists.
“The Grammys in classical music are important; they’re just less of a splash,” he said. “Everybody knows Beyoncé and whoever, but it’s a huge thing for us. If a classical soloist gets a Grammy-winning recording, that’s great for their career.”
The composition came together during the summer of 2019 when McNair attended an artist residency program at the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences in the Appalachian Mountains.
“When you’re in such an incredibly gorgeous setting—the mountains, the waterfalls, the valleys—all of this stuff is going to infuse your soul,” he said. “At least for me, it did.”
He later named the piece “Rabun Gap” after a nearby town.
“It goes from a kind of mysterious opening to gradually becoming lighter and clearer, then bigger and ebullient and uplifting and grand. Later, the music moves higher and becomes more tender and vulnerable,” McNair explained.
He described the melody as unfolding from grand harmonies to “quiet and kind of mysterious at the end ... as if you're going backwards from a big river to the headwaters into the tiny little spring that began it.”