Grainger Reimagined explores the ways in which Grainger’s outputs as composer, arranger, and performer have been recast in the contemporary moment. Such reimaginings as Alright Jack, Home Service’s folk rock version of Lincolnshire Posy, George Shearing and Mel Tormé’s lounge jazz-inflected performance of Brigg Fair, and experimental composer Jon Rose’s Perks and Skeleton in the Museum have all continued to facilitate the crossing of musical borders, enabling and promoting cross-genre music making, and acting as a refreshing alternative to prevailing musical discourses.
Each of the three online presentations in the series is given by leading musical practitioners who will explores their individual responses to Grainger’s influence in the fields of arrangement, performance and composition. Further information abut the series can be found here.
The first presentation in the series is given by Chalon Ragsdale, Professor of Percussion at the University of Arkansas. Of this presentation, Reimagining Grainger Through Arrangement, Professor Ragsdale writes:
“Grainger’s life’s work was a consistent theme of a search for freedom – freedom for himself as a performer and composer, and freedom from convention. His pioneering spirit and extensive writing on 'the manifest nature of music' is a study in itself. In this presentation for the Percy Grainger Society I will attempt to use Grainger’s words to provide insights and advice on arranging his music as well as his advice on arranging music in general.”
Chalon Ragsdale is University Professor of Percussion at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, and owner of Aux Arcs Music, a publishing firm responsible for some 30 editions of the music of Percy Grainger for wind band and Percussion Ensemble. His arrangements have been performed widely in the United States, and for international audiences in Japan, Australia, and across Europe, and are distributed by C. Alan Publications and Southern Music Company.
Professor Ragsdale has presented on the life and music of Percy Grainger for the Midwest Clinic, the College Band Directors National Association, for the Japan Grainger Festival in Tokyo, and three times for the Grainger Museum in Melbourne. In 2003, he was awarded the Grainger Medallion by the International Percy Grainger Society for his “contributions to the music of Percy Grainger.”