Cheryl Pawelski Wins Second Grammy Award

Best Historical Album for President Audrey Bilger’s Wife 

Cheryl Pawelski (R) accepting the Grammy Award with her wife, President Audrey Bilger (L). Photo Courtesy of the Recording Academy.

On March 14, Cheryl Pawelski, record producer and wife of Reed College President Audrey Bilger, won her second Grammy Award for Best Historical Album for her work on It’s Such a Good Feeling: The Best of Mister Rogers. The album is a compilation of Rogers’s most well known songs and includes five previously unreleased tracks. Pawelski accepted the award from home with Bilger, surrounded by their collection of almost 70,000 records. Michael Graves and Lee Lodyga, Pawleski’s collaborators, were present via a video call, hosted on a tablet held to the camera by Bilger.

Pawelski previously won Best Historical Album in 2014 for her work producing The Garden Spot Programs, 1950, a compilation of previously unpublished radio shows recorded by country music singer Hank Williams. The award recognizes achievements in audio restoration.

Pawelski has been working in the music industry for decades, having previously worked at Rhino Entertainment, Concord Music Group, and EMI-Capitol records before going on to co-found her own label, Omnivore Records—which Bilger named. Over her extensive career, Pawelski has supervised and produced recordings, reissues, and boxed sets for numerous artists, including The Beach Boys, Big Star, Nina Simone, and Aretha Franklin. Some of her work is well-loved by the Reed community: in an article for Portland Monthly, Pawleski recalled being approached by a Reed student who was excited that she had overseen the release of a boxed set of previously unreleased Big Star demos and recordings.

Congratulations, Cheryl! The Reed community is elated at your win! Watch her acceptance speech here.