OU Professor Brings Music Production Skills to Grammy-Nominated Albums

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NORMAN, Okla. – As thousands plan to gather in Los Angeles in February for “music’s biggest night,” Christina Giacona is well prepared for the moment.

The University of Oklahoma graduate and professor is making her fourth trip to the Grammy Awards next month, as four albums she worked on have received nominations from the Recording Academy. She’s ready to thrive throughout the day-long celebration, having learned a valuable lesson from last year.

“I’m bringing two sets of shoes: the ones, that if we win, I walk up on stage with,” said Giacona, who teaches in OU’s School of Music and serves as both its coordinator of creative initiatives and coordinator of the Music Industry Studies program. “And then my tennis shoes.”

Giacona has helped produce a variety of albums for different artists and groups throughout her career. This Grammys cycle marks the first time when multiple projects she’s worked on have earned nominations in the same ceremony.

Her contributions at the 2026 Grammy Awards include:

• Choral producer, mix engineer and engineer for Se7en Seasons, by Kitt Wakeley, nominated for Best Classical Compendium
• Producer, mix engineer and engineer for Alike – My Mother’s Dream, by Allison Charney, nominated for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album
• Mix engineer for Requiem of Light, by The Clarion Choir, Steven Fox and Patti Drennan, nominated for Best Choral Performance
• Engineer for Shayan, by Charu Suri, nominated for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album

The four projects include further University of Oklahoma ties. Kitt Wakeley earned his master’s at OU and is an adjunct professor in the College of Fine Arts. He also recruited Giacona for last year’s Grammy-nominated album Impossible Dream by Aaron Lazar and worked with her on the 2023 Grammy-winning album An Adoption Story. Patti Drennan earned her master’s at OU and taught for decades in the Norman Public Schools system.

Additionally, Giacona’s creative partner, Patrick Conlon, is another OU graduate who worked in many similar roles as Giacona across the four albums. School of Music faculty members David Howard and Gaye Leblanc contributed to Se7en Seasons and Alike, respectively, while the OU Men’s Glee and Vox Lyrica choirs were incorporated into Se7en Seasons.

Giacona’s work on the four albums ranged from ensuring performers matched what their composer had in mind, to handling recorded audio in post-production. For example, on Requiem of Light, she used her Oklahoma City production studio, Onyx Lane, to seamlessly mix and balance different microphone recordings together into left and right stereo speakers.

“There was one part where the singers would shout out little lines, and we had to create a sonic space that sounded like you were in a cathedral, and the sound was surrounding you,” Giacona said. “We do things like that to help bring the music to life.”

Her contributions on the nominated albums at times involved traveling to different venues. For Alike, she worked in Oklahoma, Texas, New York and even the Czech Republic, helping the team record unique audio components that were later brought together.

“I had never been to Prague or worked with the Prague Orchestra before,” said Giacona, noting that the ensemble has deep classical music expertise. “When you’re hiring an orchestra, it’s really expensive. You have to be very conscious of how much time you’re spending. So it’s a very fast-paced style of recording.”

Giacona is also a performer who recently worked with the OU Wind Symphony in recording a new version of her 2021 post-classical visual album Cube of Light, which she created and composed alongside Conlon. She said that version is expected to release this year.

While Giacona has been part of a Grammy-winning project before, this year’s four nominations are unprecedented territory for her. She’s enjoying being closer than ever to earning “the gold standard of music” again.

“It makes you think that all of the hard work and sleepless nights were worth it,” Giacona said. “Every week or so, we get reports on streams and things like that. People are loving these albums, and that’s the best feeling.”