Percy Grainger and His Composer Colleagues

Percy Grainger was acquainted with many of its leading musicians and composers of his time, including Vaughan Williams, Edward Elgar, Richard Strauss, and Claude Debussy.  In 1907, he met Frederick Delius, with whom he achieved an immediate rapport since the two musicians had similar ideas about composition and harmony and shared a dislike for the classical German masters. Both were inspired by folk music; Grainger gave Delius his setting of the folk song Brigg Fair, which Delius developed into his famous orchestral rhapsody, dedicated to Grainger.  This program will explore these collegial relationships and others.

Dana Paul Perna is an American composer-musicologist at the forefront of endorsing the music of Percy Grainger through his works for orchestra, concert band and chorus. He was the conductor for the wind ensemble Holzblazer, both in New York and Chicago, and has studied composition with Elie Siegmeister and David Loeb. His music for orchestra, brass, concert band, chorus and chamber music has been played in North America, Europe, and Asia.