Child Celebrates Being Grammy-Adjacent

Andrew won a Grammy®1 last night—her second, astonishingly—as the cellist of the Attacca Quartet, playing the music of Caroline Shaw. The newsroom here is very proud of her, having known her since before she was a Grammy®-award-winning artist, even before the publisher of this newspaper was born, even (if we may) when Andrew was Kina’s age and did not yet know how to play the cello.

That it is possible to grow from being a person I did not know to play the cello to being a person who now wins Grammys® for it seems like a minor miracle, but I can assure you it is the combination of a tremendous gift and many years of hard work that, frankly, I cannot imagine having put in the way Andrew has.

The last time Andrew won a Grammy® (words that I never imagined I’d say about a child whose musical gifts were once limited to playing the Jaws theme over and over), it was February of 2020, just a few weeks before the lockdown. To win an award like this comes with real privileges, and the Attacca Quartet got very few of them that year—a massive victory, but a real letdown of a parade. 2020 was a bad year for musicians, and I watched Andrew adapt and the quartet grow (sprouting not just a new second violinist, but also two additional children). It occurred to me that most musicians do not see an award like this even once in a lifetime, and it was good for Andrew to make the most of the one they got, even though times were tough.

But then last night, as I watched Kina scarf down a plate of rice and beans with her pal Futura after an epic playground date, and as I refreshed my phone so hard it ran down my battery, I saw them win. This was satisfying on so many levels, knowing now that Andrew and the quartet could finally tour a Grammy® (a valuable exercise for a classical music performing ensemble), but also knowing that Andrew and her partner Des could celebrate the occasion together, as Kina’s precious cousin-brother Otis was looking on from Brooklyn.

Success looks like a lot of things—not all of them awards, and not all of them money. Sometimes success looks like getting a full night’s sleep. Sometimes it’s somebody’s closed eyes as your music washes over them. Sometimes it’s singing your favorite song to your little kid at bedtime. Sometimes it’s mastering a really tricky phrase and playing it as though it’s a thought that just popped into your head. Sometimes it’s putting on a ball gown and standing on stage in front of some of the most gifted musicians in the world and knowing what commitment feels like.

Kina looked at Andrew on stage last night and saw success. It means a lot to me that she was able to do that.

Brava, Andrew.

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