About
Experimental composer-vocalist Sarah Grace Graves venerates the ritual of performance, weaving together ancient and contemporary music, improvised and orally transmitted music, songs and virtuosic vocal sound that is neither spoken nor sung to express something internal that at the same time transcends the confines of the human body. She is an avid interpreter of the music of Carol Robinson, Giacinto Scelsi, and Erin Gee, among many others.
From 2020-2022 she studied extended vocal techniques with Nicholas Isherwood at Conservatoire de Montbéliard while conducting an artistic residency at the Fondation des États-Unis in Paris centered around interdisciplinary collaboration with the voice. In summer 2023 she was in residence at the Fondazione Isabella Scelsi in Rome as the 2022 Michiko Hirayama Fellow. She is now in the composition PhD program at UC Berkeley.
She has duo projects with Eda Er, Virginia Guidi, and Julie Zhu and has collaborated with Carol Robinson, Helēna Sorokina, Yarn/Wire, EXAUDI, and the Italian new vocal music ensemble Fragmente. She is an alumna of the Voix Nouvelles Academy at Royaumont and the Harriet Hale Woolley residency at the Fondation des États-Unis.
Her solo album Currents is available on Bandcamp.
Projects
With Eda Er: Experimental storytelling
With Virginia Guidi: Site-specific improvisation
With Julie Zhu: Ghost tones
Solo: Interdisciplinary ritual
Composition
Click here for list of works
Love Letter (2023) for voice, two pianos, and timpani. Written for Yarn/Wire. Premiered with Yarn/Wire, December 15, 2023 at Hertz Hall, Berkeley, CA.
flesh, bone, skin, time (2023) for four performers | score (excerpt)
Howl Alive (2022), for voice and bass clarinet. Premiered with Carol Robinson at the Fondation des États-Unis, April 21, 2022 as part of the artistic residency project Bringing Life to the Score with Carol Robinson, Ensemble Calliopée and the Fondation des États-Unis.
the feeling of being in a body (2021), for six voices. Written for the Académie Voix Nouvelles of the Fondation Royaumont. Premiered by EXAUDI on September 5, 2021.
Interim (2021), film. Released April 27, 2021. Official selection of the Guerilla Opera’s Guerilla Underground virtual performance season.
Embrace (2020), for solo voice. Written for Helēna Sorokina’s commissioning project voice.only: shades of solitude.
night vision (2019), for two voices. Written for and premiered with Niki Lada at IlSuono Contemporary Music Week, Città di Castello, IT, July 2019
Second performance, Sarah Grace Graves and Soso Leung-Wolf at N.E.O. Voice Festival in Los Angeles, August 2019
Third performance with Cecilia Engelhart in Berkeley, CA, February 19, 2020
Landing (2018), for string quartet. Composed June–October, 2018. Premiered at CNMAT by Quatuor Tana, November 11, 2018.
Both/And (2018), for 2 vocalists and 2 percussionists. Premiered by Sarah Grace Graves and Andy Leggett (vocals) and Ian Jones and Kathie Hsieh (percussion) on July 3, 2018 at Oregon Bach Festival Composers Symposium, Eugene, OR. Version for two solo voices premiered with Nayoung Jung at CNMAT, October 12, 2019
Performance
Click here for repertoire list
Carol Robinson: Back Into the Gaping Again-ness (2021) for voice and fixed media
Giacinto Scelsi: Canti del Capricorno (1962-1972, unpublished) for solo voice and auxiliary instruments