Patrick Grant

PATRICK GRANT is a Detroit-born composer/performer living in New York City and creates music for a wide range of media. In the 90s he worked on the production team for composer John Cage and began producing his first recordings at the studios of Philip Glass. He spearheaded the compositional element of an international project for the Millennium which had him working with Billy Joel and Quincy Jones. Interest in world music brought him to Bali three times to study the gamelan which manifested itself in his work through the use of alternative tunings, ensembles with multiple keyboards, and in his work with Robert Fripp (King Crimson, Brian Eno, David Bowie) & The Orchestra of Crafty Guitarists. He was host of the internationally acclaimed podcast Strings and Things and remains musically active in his hometown of Detroit and in cities over three continents. In 2017 he joined the NYU Tisch School of the Arts as an adjunct professor in the Film School.

He has created scores for theatrical visionaries The Living Theatre and Robert Wilson, and music for installations at the Louvre and the musée du Quai Branly in Paris. His music has been applied visually through seven collaborations with the artist Kehinde Wiley, scores for feature documentaries, and music tech seminars.

ISince 2012 he has consistently received ASCAP Plus Awards for continued musical excellence. Recently, he performed as music producer and co-arranger of NYFA Fellow Joseph Keckler's "I am an Opera" for a month of sold-out shows at Dixon Place in NYC.

He is the creator of International Strange Music Day (Aug. 24th) and the 'electric guitar procession' as a genre. he has been granted rights from the Beatles' publishers to create a set of variations on Strawberry Fields Forever for chamber ensemble and rock band.

His music has been performed extensively by theater troupes in Brazil, appearing in the major cities and international festivals there. With radio producer Jocelyn Gonzales he created the MMiX Festival of Interactive Music Technology in NYC, an event co-sponsored by Ableton (LIVE 8), Cycling ’74 (Max/MSP), and WNYC Radio.

He music directed the European premiere of his electronic realization of the Morton Feldman/Samuel Beckett opera “Neither” in Vienna. In 2010, Grant returned to Europe and Brazil for new works in concert, theater, and multimedia and created H2Opus: Fluid Soundscapes by Multiple Composers for Make Music New York 2010. Grant also produces content for the new music blog The MMiXdown.

He has created musical scores for the Cornell Gamelan Ensemble and the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company in San Francisco (a piece called "the strangest and most ravishing dance of the year" by the SF Chronicle and nominated for Best Dance Score of 2003 by the Isadora Duncan Dance Awards). His work often involves elements found in the natural and physical sciences (Genome: The Autobiography of a Species).

He has been commissioned by the CUNY Graduate Center (BIG BANG 1.0), jointly by the artist Kehinde Wiley (for soprano Shequida), Deitch Projects (Rumors of War), and The Columbus Museum of Art (Historical Black Music Rollercoaster), and the Modern Museum of Fort Worth.

His works have been performed at the Bang on a Can Annual Marathon, MATA - Music at the Anthology, by Gamelan Son of Lion, The CUNY Graduate Center's Science & the Arts series, and the Forum Freies Theater in Germany.

As a presenter, Mr. Grant has produced scores of new music concerts in the alternative spaces of New York City, in art galleries, theaters, factory lofts and clubs, since 1988. He formed his own ensemble, the protean Patrick Grant Group, in 1998.

He is founder and artistic director of Strange Music Inc., an organization dedicated to releasing recordings and presenting compelling new work with performances and installations in New York and around the world. He formed Peppergreen Media in 2011 as a way of broadening music's reach into other media.