Greenwich Native Nominated For Grammy Award

GREENWICH, CT — One of Greenwich's own has been nominated for a Grammy Award.

Cheryl B. Engelhardt's album "The Passenger" has been nominated in the category of Best New Age, Ambient or Chant Album. This is Engelhardt’s first Grammy nomination.

Engelhardt grew up in Greenwich and graduated from Greenwich Academy in 1998.

"The Passenger," a reflection on grief, loss and the healing process, was written by Engelhardt as she traveled by train from New York to Los Angeles.

In November 2021, Engelhardt was looking to book a flight to LA for the Grammy Awards, but instead decided to take the train. She departed on her first leg of the trip on Jan. 22, 2022.

At the same time, one of her closest friends and collaborators had died from stage four cancer.

Stricken with grief, Engelhardt spent 216 hours in a train "roomette" processing her feelings and focusing on her instrumental songwriting.

Engelhardt said she created three tracks on the first day between Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and Chicago, Ill.

The cross-country trip resulted in "The Passenger," which features nine meditative compositions. The album was composed, produced, mixed and mastered entirely by women, and it's the first record made on a cross-USA trip. It also became a No. 1 bestseller on Amazon and iTunes.

The album is Engelhardt's first full-on ambient electronic record. All sounds are from synthesizer samples and none of the tracks have lyrics — far from her usual acoustic and piano-vocal layering approach.

Engelhardt also decided to return by train rather than fly back to New York. She used the return trip to edit and fine-tune the album.

"This body of work initially felt like such a departure from what I’m used to creating. Only recently did I realize that it’s soaked in what I have always valued: collaborations with beautiful humans; a journey, both musical and literal; and honoring the exact moment in time when the music was created," Engelhardt said recently in a news release. "A nomination for this project gives extra meaning to a hard time, and highlights again that music does in fact heal when used as a tool for processing."

"The Passenger" features an award-winning cast of collaborators including Grammy-winning musicians Lili Haydn, Sangeeta Kaur, and Danaë Xanthe Vlasse, as well as Dallas String Quartet and renowned flutist Sherry Finzer.

The 2023 Grammy Awards are scheduled for Feb. 5, 2023.

To view Engelhardt's journey and to listen to "The Passenger," click here. View all nominees here.