Joseph Gramley is an American multi-percussionist, teacher and composer, and a founding member of the Silk Road Ensemble. As a solo performer he each year commissions and premieres new works from such emerging composers as Kojiro Umezaki and Justin Messina. His first solo recording, American Deconstruction, featuring performances of five milestone works in multi-percussion's modern repertoire, appeared in 2000 and was reissued in 2006. His second CD, Global Percussion, was released in 2005. [1]
Gramley grew up in Oregon and was named a Presidential Scholar in the Arts while at senior at the Interlochen Arts Academy in 1988. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Michigan, where he was a student of Michael Udow and Salvatore Rabbio and was a recipient of the Albert A. Stanley Medal. He also attended the Tanglewood Institute and Salzburg Mozarteum. Gramley made his concerto debut in 1992 with the Houston Symphony Orchestra and music director Christoph Eschenbach after winning their National Soloist Competition. His solo debut followed in 1994 at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall. He did his graduate studies at the Juilliard School in New York where he studied with Gordon Gottlieb and Daniel Druckman. Upon receiving his M. Mus., Gramley performed and recorded with the Ethos Percussion Group throughout the U. S. and Europe.
In 2000, Gramley began working with Yo-Yo Ma as a founding member of the Silk Road Ensemble, which, as part of Mr. Ma's Silk Road Project, became one of the best-selling classical music groups in the world. In addition to participating in the group's extended residencies in American cities, Gramley has toured with the Ensemble throughout Europe and Asia. [2] In the course of his involvement with the group, Gramley has studied percussion styles and instruments from around the globe, and collaborated with musicians from India, Iran, China, Japan, Korea and Central Asia. He has performed on six Silk Road albums on the SonyBMG label, as well as the group's Grammy-nominated CD with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Transitions and Transformations (CSO Resound, 2008). He also performed on Yo-Yo Ma's Grammy-winning Songs of Joy and Peace (Sony Classical, 2008). Gramley can be heard on the Silk Road's CDs Off the Map (World Village Classical, 2009), A Playlist Without Borders (Sony Classical, 2014) and thf GRAMMY-winning ‘Sing Me Home’ (Sony Classical 2016).
In October 2008, Gramley and Yo-Yo Ma jointly appeared as guest artists with the Nashville Symphony. [3] Gramley served as Silkroad’s first chair of their artist-led ‘leadership council’ from 2012-2014 and served as Associate Artistic Director, working directly with Yo-Yo Ma from 2015-2017.
In addition to his solo and Silk Road work, as well as his frequent appearances with chamber groups and orchestras, Gramley performs with the British organist Clive Driskill-Smith in the duo Organized Rhythm. The pair's first recording, Beaming Music, was issued in 2008.
Gramley has performed with the Metropolitan Opera (on stage in Tan Dun with Plácido Domingo), [4] and accompanied Pierre-Laurent Aimard on his 2007 United States tour. [5] He has performed with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the Orchestra of St. Luke's as well as The Knights. [6] Festival appearances include Tanglewood, Marlboro, Spoleto and Caramoor. He has also performed with orchestras for the Broadway productions of Miss Saigon , Jekyll & Hyde, Phantom of the Opera , and The Color Purple , and has accompanied Elton John at Radio City Music Hall.
Joseph Gramley is a Professor of Music (Percussion) at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. He began this post in August 2019.
Gramley directed the percussion program at the University of Michigan from 2007-2019, and directed the Juilliard Summer Percussion Seminar, which he founded in 2000, until 2016 when Samuel Solomon became the Artistic Director. It is an intensive program for high-school students held annually at Lincoln Center in New York City. Gramley regularly appears as a guest artist and speaker at schools and conservatories worldwide. Gramley's own compositions have been performed at the Art Institute of Chicago, Dallas' Meyerson Symphony Center Concert Hall and San Francisco's Davies Symphony Hall.
American Deconstruction (2000) Reissued 2006 (7-00261-20812-1). Global Percussion (2005) Towerhill (6-64457-20032-3).
Beaming Music (2008), Equilibrium (7-94055-00892-9).
When Strangers Meet (2002)Sony Classical (ASIN: B0000641CG) Beyond the Horizon (2004), Sony Classical (8-2796-93962-2) New Impossibilities (2007), Sony Classical (8-8697-10319-2) Off the Map (2009), World Village Music. (7-13746-80952-2) A Playlist Without Borders (2014) Sony Classical. Sing Me Home (2016) Sony Classical.
Songs of Joy & Peace (2008), Sony Classical (ASIN: B001BN1V82). Viva Brazil, Sony Classical 2014.
Yo-Yo Ma is an American cellist. Born in Paris to Chinese parents and educated in New York City, he was a child prodigy, performing from the age of four and a half. He graduated from the Juilliard School and Harvard University and attended Columbia University and has performed as a soloist with orchestras around the world. He has recorded more than 90 albums and received 19 Grammy Awards.
Seiji Ozawa is a Japanese conductor known for his advocacy of modern composers and for his work with the San Francisco Symphony, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna State Opera and the Boston Symphony Orchestra where he served as music director for 29 years. He is the recipient of numerous international awards.
Evan Ziporyn is an American composer of post-minimalist music with a cross-cultural orientation, drawing equally from classical music, avant-garde, various world music traditions, and jazz. Ziporyn has composed for a wide range of ensembles, including symphony orchestras, wind ensembles, many types of chamber groups, and solo works, sometimes involving electronics. Balinese gamelan, for which he has composed numerous works, has compositions. He is known for his solo performances on clarinet and bass clarinet; additionally, Ziporyn plays gender wayang and other Balinese instruments, saxophones, piano & keyboards, EWI, and Shona mbira.
The Tanglewood Festival Chorus, directed by James Burton, is a chorus which performs with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Boston Pops in major choral works. The Tanglewood Festival Chorus (TFC) was organized in the spring of 1970, when founding conductor John Oliver became director of vocal and choral activities at the Tanglewood Music Center, the summer home of the BSO. Originally formed for performances at the BSO's summer home at the behest of the BSO's conductor designate Seiji Ozawa, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus is the official chorus of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Boston Pops Orchestra year-round, performing in Boston, New York and Tanglewood.
David Frost is an American classical record producer and pianist. He has won 20 Grammy Awards for his work including seven wins for Producer of the Year, Classical. He is a music producer for the Metropolitan Opera and has recorded major orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and Los Angeles Philharmonic.
The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra is an American symphony orchestra based in Baltimore, Maryland. The Baltimore SO has its principal residence at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, where it performs more than 130 concerts a year. In 2005, it began regular performances at the Music Center at Strathmore in Bethesda.
David Eric Robertson is an American conductor. He was chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and was formerly music director of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra from 2005 until 2018. He is Director of Orchestral Studies at Juilliard.
Wu Man is a Chinese pipa player and composer. Trained in Pudong-style pipa performance at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, she is known for playing in a broad range of musical styles and introducing the pipa and its Chinese heritage into Western genres. She has performed and recorded extensively with Kronos Quartet and Silk Road Ensemble, and has premiered works by Philip Glass, Lou Harrison, Terry Riley, Bright Sheng, Tan Dun, Zhao Jiping, and Zhou Long, among many others. She has recorded and appeared on over 40 albums, five of which have been nominated for Grammy Awards. In 2013, she was named Instrumentalist of the Year by Musical America, becoming the first performer of a non-Western instrument to receive this award. She also received The United States Artist' Award in 2008.
Silkroad, formerly the Silk Road Project, Inc., is a not-for-profit organization, initiated by the cellist Yo-Yo Ma in 1998, promoting collaboration among artists and institutions, promoting multicultural artistic exchange, and studying the ebb and flow of ideas. The project was first inspired by the cultural traditions of the historical Eurasian Silk Road trade routes and now encompasses a number of artistic, cultural and educational programs focused on connecting people and ideas from around the world. It has been described as an "arts and educational organization that connects musicians, composers, artists and audiences around the world" and "an initiative to promote multicultural artistic collaboration."
Christopher Chapman Rouse III was an American composer. Though he wrote for various ensembles, Rouse is primarily known for his orchestral compositions, including a Requiem, a dozen concertos, and six symphonies. His work received numerous accolades, including the Kennedy Center Friedheim Award, the Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition, and the Pulitzer Prize for Music. He also served as the composer-in-residence for the New York Philharmonic from 2012 to 2015.
Sérgio Assad is a Brazilian guitarist, composer, and arranger who often performs with his brother, Odair in the guitar duo Sérgio and Odair Assad, commonly referred to as the Assad Brothers or Duo Assad. Their younger sister Badi is also a guitarist. Assad is the father of composer/singer/pianist Clarice Assad. He is married to Angela Olinto.
Joel Fan is an American pianist and Steinway Artist "who has won praise for his technical expertise, lyrical playing, and outstanding interpretation". The New York Times has described Joel Fan as an "impressive pianist" with a "probing intellect and vivid imagination." "Fan has a flourishing international career as a performing and recording artist, notable for his fluency in the standard repertoire and contemporary works." Consistently acclaimed for his recitals and appearances with orchestras, Mr. Fan scored two consecutive Billboard Top 10 Debuts with his solo CDs World Keys and West of the Sun, while Dances for Piano and Orchestra earned a Grammy nomination.
Gabriela Lena Frank is an American pianist and composer of contemporary classical music.
Kinan Azmeh, is a Syrian clarinet player and composer of contemporary music. Performing with orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, the Seattle Symphony, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, or the Syrian Symphony Orchestra, he has played both as a soloist of classical works as well as of contemporary compositions.
Lynn Chang is a Chinese American violinist known for his work as both a soloist and a chamber musician. Chang is a founding member of the Boston Chamber Music Society and is currently a faculty member at MIT, Boston University, the Boston Conservatory, and the New England Conservatory of Music.
Christopher Adler is a musician, composer and music professor at University of San Diego. A virtuoso player of the khaen, a reed instrument native to Laos and Thailand, he has been composing works for the khaen both as a solo instrument and in combination with western instruments since 1996. His works for solo piano include the three-part Bear Woman Dances, commissioned to accompany a dance depicting a Korean creation myth and largely based the Korean musical system nongak. Four of his compositions have been broadcast internationally on WGBH's Art of the States series. His composition for sheng, viola and percussion, Music for a Royal Palace, was commissioned by Carnegie Hall for Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Project. An homage to Thailand's Bang Pa-In Palace, the work incorporates traditional Thai melody and embellishments. It was performed at Zankel Hall in 2006 and recorded at the Tanglewood Music Center that same year. His Serpent of Five Tongues for sheng and guanzi premiered at the 2011 MATA Festival.
Jeremy Kittel is a contemporary Grammy-nominated American musician and composer. His primary instruments are the violin / fiddle and viola and his styles include Celtic, Jazz, Classical, Bluegrass, Folk music, and more.
Sandeep Das is an Indian tabla player and composer currently based in Boston, Massachusetts, United States.
Eric Jacobsen is an American conductor and cellist. He is currently a member of The Knights, and the Silk Road Project, and is the Music Director of the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra and Virginia Symphony Orchestra, Principal Conductor of the Greater Bridgeport Symphony, and when was an artistic partner of the Northwest Sinfonietta from 2015-2018
Andrew Norman is an American composer of contemporary classical music whose texturally complex music is influenced by architecture and the visual arts. His string trio The Companion Guide to Rome (2010), was a runner-up for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Music. While composer-in-residence for the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, he first gained international attention for the orchestral work Play (2013), which was nominated for the 2016 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition and won the 2017 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition. He received another Grammy nomination for the orchestral work Sustain (2018), a commission from the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Other noted works include the fantasy for piano and orchestra Split (2015) and the opera A Trip to the Moon (2017). Since 2020, Norman has been on the composition faculty of the Juilliard School.
| General | |
|---|---|
| National libraries | |
