PERCY ALDRIDGE GRAINGER

8^thJuly 1882 --- 20^thFebraury 1961

Original name George Percy Grainger he adopted the professional name of "Percy Aldridge Grainger" for his published works in
1911 he was born July 8, 1882 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia and died in Feb. 20, 1961 in a hospital at White Plains, New
York USA, the Australian-born American composer, pianist, and conductor who was also known for his work in collecting folk music.

Grainger first appeared publicly as a pianist at age 10. He was educated at home in Melbourne by his mother. He studied piano with
Louis Pabst in that city and later went to Frankfurt, where he attended the conservatory. He achieved a reputation as a brilliant
concert pianist beginning in London in 1901. In 1906 Grainger became a friend of Edvard Grieg, under whose influence he began to
collect and record English folk songs by means of wax cylinder phonographs. He settled in the United States in 1914 performing for
a few years with a U.S. Army band and On 3 June 1918 he became a naturalised American citizen.

Grainger was deeply affected by the suicide of his mother in 1922. He returned to Australia alone in 1924 and then toured there as a
pianist in 1926. It was shortly after this in October 1927 that Grainger married Ella Ström, a Swedish-born artist who he had met
before in 1926 while returning to America from his tour of Australia, he went on tour there again in 1934-35. In 1932-33 he was
head of the music department of New York University. In 1935 he founded the Grainger Museum at Melbourne, of Australian music
where much of his own work and some of his artifacts are preserved.

Grainger was heavily influenced by English folk music, which he arranged for keyboard instruments, chamber ensembles, and both
solo voice and chorus. He is probably best remembered for Country Gardens and for the orchestral work Molly on the Shore.
Other orchestral works are Shepherd's Hey and Mock Morris. In his chamber works, notably the two Hill Songs for 23 and 24 solo
instruments, he experimented with novel rhythmic and structural forms.
Copyright 1994-1998 Encyclopaedia Britannica
Last Updated on 2020
By Steven Ritchie

And now for the Music

New (3146)"Molly On The Shore". Sequenced by Matt Yurkewecz.

(851)"Irish Tune from County Derry, Danny Boy". Sequenced in real time by Moray Nichol

"The Mock Morris dances". Sequenced by David Siu.

New (3145)"Shepherd's Hey". Sequencer Unknown.

New (3144)" Irish tune from County Derry". Sequencer Unknown.

New (3143)" Country Gardens". Sequencer Unknown.

"The Childrens March". Sequencer unknown

(850)"The Gumsuckers March". Sequencer unknown

(852)"Handel in the Strand, Clog Dance,(Info by Loren)". Sequencer unknown

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