Amanda Forsythe was out for a walk with friends when her phone started pinging over and over again.
“It was not on my radar that the nominations were coming out,” she said. “I was out for a walk, getting my steps in with a Belmont mom, and I went to look at my phone because it was … pinging, and I had all these messages saying ‘Congratulations!’ and my agent was saying, ‘Call me.’”
All those messages came in reaction to the 49-year-old Belmont resident being named a 2026 Grammy Award nominee for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album.
“Honestly, you just never know which album is going to be the album that they pick,” she said.
Forsythe has been singing since childhood. In college, with no real plan to be a musician, she declared a biology major. But after joining the a capella group, she started taking voice lessons and, in her sophomore year, switched to studying music. Following a year off after college, she found herself at the New England Conservatory.
Now, as a professional singer, Forsythe works primarily as a solo artist.
“There is a lot of work here in Boston, especially because I specialize in Baroque music,” Forsythe said. “Boston is fortunate enough to have three period instrument orchestras — Boston Baroque, Handel and Haydn, and the Boston Early Music Festival — so I sing with all those organizations.”
She also does a lot of concerts and tours. Traveling is a big part of her job, too. In December, she travels for the Messiah season. The Messiah, a liturgical work composed by George Frideric Handel, is commonly listened to by Christians around the holidays. This year she will be performing Messiah with Boston Baroque, the New York Philharmonic, and the National Symphony in Washington D.C.
Though she identifies herself to others as an opera singer, Forsythe doesn’t do as many operas as she once did, mainly due to the time commitment associated with them. She now does maybe one per year.
“Opera is a full art form, you get the acting as well — the costumes, the dancers, everything — which I really enjoy,” she said.
The most significant part of her work, however, is recording.
In fact, the nominated album is “maybe her 30th” album to date. All of the pieces on the album are from operas in the era of Georg Philipp Telemann. Her team extracted the arias, or opera solos, they found “most compelling.”
“This is nice, because it’s a solo album with the Boston Early Music Festival, with all Telemann music, which is fantastic. It’s been getting a lot of good nominations this year,” she said.
The album was one of three finalists for the Gramophone Awards in London and a finalist for the International Opera Awards. And now, it’s a Grammy nominee.
“There has been a real shift in the last few years regarding the classical Grammys,” Forsythe said. “They are interested in honoring works that have not previously been recorded, which leaves contemporary classical music, and previously `undiscovered,’ or often neglected pieces of music from previous centuries. Baroque music has a lot of undiscovered treasures, and several of the arias on this album have not been heard since they premiered in the 1700s.”
The whole recording was completed in about 10 days in Germany last year. The recording process involved a full orchestra and conductors Robert Mealy, Paul O’Dette, and Stephen Stubbs.
Forsythe moved to Belmont from Somerville in 2018. She has two sons, both in the public school system and both with their own musical talent — the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, she joked.
“I love that Belmont has such a strong music program,” Forsythe said. “Both my kids have been in the orchestra over there, and there are not a lot of schools where you still have musical instruction three to four days a week. I didn’t know that when I moved here, but I was pleasantly surprised.”
Forsythe will travel to Los Angeles for the 68th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, Feb. 1, at the Crytpo.com Arena.
An earlier version of this article misidentified the conservatory Forsythe attended. Forsythe attended the New England Conservatory.