Classical music producer Wilma Cozart Fine (’47), who died in September, was honored posthumously with a 2011 Grammy Trustees Award in February.
The award recognizes outstanding contributions to the industry in a non-performing capacity and is voted on by the Recording Academy’s National Board of Trustees. As a vice president of classical music at Mercury Records in the 1950s and ’60s, Cozart Fine produced recordings still admired for their realistic sound. Working with her engineer husband, Robert Fine, she branded the recordings “Living Presence” for their accuracy. She retired in 1964 to raise her family but returned to the studio in 1989 to supervise the remastering of the recordings for CD.
Cozart Fine studied music education and business at North Texas and after graduating worked for Dallas Symphony Orchestra conductor Antal Dorati, as secretary and unofficial manager for the orchestra. She went to Minneapolis when Dorati was hired as a conductor there, and later moved to New York, where she was hired to run Mercury’s then-new classical division.
Watch a video of Cozart Fine’s family accepting the award on her behalf. >>