Kraig Grady | en

Kraig Grady is a composer and a sound artist. He has been described by David Toop as an Ethnographic Surrealist. Born in California in 1952 ( of Ojibwe Indian ascent ) , now residing in Australia where as a citizen of Anaphoria he is responsible for the Austronesian Outpost of Anaphoria and one of its most prominent organs, the Office of Cultural Liaisons.

After mercurial composition studies (a.o with Byong-Kon Kim) and improvising for a while under the inspiration of Stockhausen’s ensemble works, an epiphanic performance of Harry Partch's U. S. Highball that he attended in 1976 led him to unexplored paths. The meeting of Erv Wilson, another pioneer of microtonalism, opened for him the door to alternative tunings with Erv Wilson’s elaborate system of “hexanies” and larger multi-dimensional tonal geometries. This led him to compositions in the just intonation resources of Wilson's combination-product sets and meta-slendro. Kraig Grady also started simultaneously building its own mesotonal / xenharmonic instruments ( metallophones, marimbas, hammered dulcimers and reed organs ) and assembling them into ensembles. His current work makes use of mallet instruments tuned Wilson's Meta-Slendro, a greatly expanded Slendro-like scale. His compositions include accompaniments for silent films and shadow puppeteer plays. His works have been presented as part of the LA Philharmonic’s American Music Weekend as well as New Music America.

The discovery of the island of Anaphoria provided him since the mid 90’s the opportunity to make use of a “visionary geographic” inner space in which the music he wanted to do and share was pre-existent. For extensive information on Anaphoria, please consult the North American Embassy Of Anaphoria Island : www.anaphoria.com
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