The year 2021 marks the sixtieth anniversary of the death of Percy Grainger (1882-1961), one of the most fascinating and original composers and pianists of his time. The Australian musician is the topic of this week’s episode of the ASCAP Deems Taylor Virgil Thomson Award winning program Between the Keys, hosted by the Classical Network’s Artost-in Residence Jed Distler.
Composer/writer and fellow ASCAP prize winner Mark N. Grant joins Distler by Zoom for the program. “I invited Mark to put together and curate the music for this episode because of his deep knowledge of Grainger’s legacy and insights into what made Grainger tick. Mark is also one of the brightest and most articulate musical minds I know, and I’ve learned so much from him since we first met back in the 1980s.”
A composer of vocal, instrumental music, opera, and work for music theater, Mark N. Grant won the coveted Friedheim Foundation Award for contemporary music in 2006 that funded the commission and performance of his 40-minute cantata The Rose of Tralee, loosely based on the Irish legend of the same title. Grant is also the author of two Deems Taylor Award-winning books, Maestros of the Pen: A History of Classical Music Criticism in America (1998) and The Rise and Fall of the Broadway Musical (2004).
Tune in to Between the Keys Episode 337: Exploring Percy Grainger, this Tuesday night at 10, with a rebroadcast Wednesday at noon, exclusively on The CLassical Network and WWFM.org.