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Upcoming events

    • Sat, June 10, 2023
    • 10:00 AM
    • 7 Cromwell Place, White Plains
    Register

    Join us for fun-filled morning as Rudyard Kipling’s classic story comes to life through Percy Grainger’s music and an interactive, multi-sensory puppet play.

    The Percy Grainger Home & Studio, a beautiful house museum and the home of the internationally renowned composer Percy Grainger, located in the heart of White Plains, is partnering with Peter Royston's Anywhere Theatre Company to present THE JUNGLE BOOK, an interactive and immersive reading of Rudyard Kipling’s famous story for kids and families!

    All of your favorite characters are here, from Mowgli, the human boy who grows up in the jungle, to Baloo the Bear and Bagheera the Panther, Mowgli’s guardians. And of course, no story is complete without a bad guy: Shere Khan, the evil tiger who will stop at nothing to get poor Mowgli! Full to the brim with imagination and wonder, THE JUNGLE BOOK is a treat for the whole family! Join us at the Grainger House for THE JUNGLE BOOK!


    Two performances:  10 am & Second seating at 12:30 pm

    (to register for the second seating at 12:30 please click here.)


    Tickets:

    Adult, and over 12 years:  $20

    Children, under 12:   $15

    Doors open 15 minutes prior to show.

    Please note, this is a historic house and restroom facilities are limited. The house is not wheelchair accessible, visitors will need to climb several flights of stairs.  

    • Sat, June 10, 2023
    • 11:00 AM
    • Virtual, via zoom. (Link sent with registration.)
    Register

    The Membership and Program Committee (MPC) continues to learn about the types of programs and projects our members enjoy.

    During the first half of 2023, we are discussing Grainger's choral works, with two programs (an introduction, then a program on performance).   

    This meeting the committee will be focus on membership recruitment, and input from current members on possible avenues to increase membership. 

    The MPC will also receive updates on two current membership projects: Dana Paul Perna’s oral histories of founding and longtime Percy Grainger Society members, and Jennifer Martin’s compilation of the location of Grainger documents throughout the world.

    The agenda is here.

    MPC Chair Bill Garlette will continue discussion, begun last meeting, of potential projects that explore Percy Grainger’s life, music, and connections to those who have significantly contributed to the advancement of Grainger's legacy.

    Discussion on further  projects might include:

    * Seminars

    * Symposiums

    * Position Papers

    * Research Progress

    * Research Resources

    * Discussion Board

    * Member Spotlight

    * Partnerships with other Associations and Societies

    Please register to join the discussion on Saturday June 10, 2023 at 11 am Eastern Time via zoom. As always, As always, the MPC Chair is happy to discuss any aspect of the Membership and Programs Committee before or after the  meeting. Email Bill Garlette (bill@percygrainger.org).

    • Sat, June 10, 2023
    • 12:30 PM
    • 7 Cromwell Place, White Plains
    Register

    Join us for fun-filled morning as Rudyard Kipling’s classic story comes to life through Percy Grainger’s music and an interactive, multi-sensory puppet play.

    The Percy Grainger Home & Studio, a beautiful house museum and the home of the internationally renowned composer Percy Grainger, located in the heart of White Plains, is partnering with Peter Royston's Anywhere Theatre Company to present THE JUNGLE BOOK, an interactive and immersive reading of Rudyard Kipling’s famous story for kids and families!

    All of your favorite characters are here, from Mowgli, the human boy who grows up in the jungle, to Baloo the Bear and Bagheera the Panther, Mowgli’s guardians. And of course, no story is complete without a bad guy: Shere Khan, the evil tiger who will stop at nothing to get poor Mowgli! Full to the brim with imagination and wonder, THE JUNGLE BOOK is a treat for the whole family! Join us at the Grainger House for THE JUNGLE BOOK!


    Two performances:  10 am & 12:30 pm


    Tickets:

    Adult, and over 12 years:  $20

    Children, under 12:   $15

    Doors open 15 minutes prior to show.

    Please note, this is a historic house and restroom facilities are limited. The house is not wheelchair accessible, visitors will need to climb several flights of stairs.  

    • Fri, June 30, 2023
    • 12:00 PM
    • Virtual via Zoom
    Register

    When faced with a score that calls for five male soloists, two mixed choruses (one with 10-part divisi and the other with 8-part divisi), four horns, three trombones, euphonium, tuba, timpani, side drum, cymbals, strings, mandolins, and guitars, the average conductor may be understandably apprehensive about programming such a work, particularly when it represents only c. 3 minutes of the overall concert program.

    What is the practical choral conductor to do?

    In this presentation, we'll explore the reality of performing Grainger's choral works from unaccompanied choruses, that fall into a more "standard" performance model, to those requiring more robust—and at times, unusual—performing forces. Grainger's concept of "elastic scoring" will be discussed as well as practical ways to perform an all-Grainger choral concert, or a set of Grainger pieces within a more typical concert program featuring several composers and styles. The presentation will focus particularly on Grainger's folk-based choral works and will conclude with an open Q&A and discussion.

    Dr. Brent Wells, Associate Professor of Choral Conducting and Ensembles, is the director of the Brigham Young University Men’s Chorus and Concert Choir. Prior to his appointment at BYU, he served as Director of Choral Activities at the College of Idaho and as conductor of Treasure Valley Millennial Choirs and Orchestras™. He has also led choral programs at the secondary level.

    Dr. Wells received his DMA in choral conducting at Michigan State University, where he studied with David Rayl, Sandra Snow, and Jonathan Reed. He earned his BM in music education and MM in choral conducting at Brigham Young University under the tutelage of Ronald Staheli, Mack Wilberg, and Rosalind Hall.

    Wells’ scholarship and creative activity focus primarily on hymnody and the folksong. He has published a series of articles in the Choral Journal discussing the folk-based compositions and collecting methodology of Percy Grainger and is also active as a composer and arranger. Wells is published by Walton Music and earthsongs, having arranged selections from the sacred harp repertory, the treasury of the African-American spiritual, and the folk traditions of Appalachia, England, Germany, Poland, Vietnam, China, Armenia, and the country of Georgia.

    • Sat, July 08, 2023
    • 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
    • Virtual, via zoom.
    Register

    Dear Percy Grainger Society Members and Guests,

    As the time for our Annual Members' Meeting approaches, we’d like to thank you for your ongoing support of, and engagement with, the Percy Grainger Society. We have had great success in the last year, with numerous programs, donations, grants, and new volunteers. This is a period of growth in the society that we can all be proud of, and in which members and volunteers continue to play a vital part.

    We hope you will be able to attend this year’s Annual Members' Meeting, which we have scheduled on Percy Grainger's birthday, Saturday, July 8, at 11am, Eastern Daily Time, (4pm BST, 1am AEST (Sunday, July 9)). The meeting will be recorded and placed in the members' area of the website for those who cannot attend at these times.

    The meeting will cover the following key topics:

    • Review of activities in 2022–23
    • New programs and initiatives for 2023–24
    • Board recruitment, and other opportunities for you to participate

    We expect the meeting will last between 1 to 1.5 hours. As is our practice, we are happy to answer any questions you may have during the meeting, and to allow time for open discussion. Of course, you can also email me before the meeting at paul@percygrainger.org.

    With best wishes, and hoping to see you at the meeting,

    Paul Jackson
    President – Percy Grainger Society

    • Sun, July 16, 2023
    • 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
    • 7 Cromwell Place, White Plains, NY 10601
    Register

    We invite you to register for our next Third Sundays tour of the Grainger Home and Studio on Sunday, July 16, 2023 at 2 pm EST.

    The Third Sundays program is an outreach initiative designed to welcome diverse groups through focused, thematic tours. Led by volunteers, we are pleased to announce that Rebecca Weissman will be leading the summer tour, offering a closer look at Grainger's relationship with Frederick Fennell, who visited Grainger at 7 Cromwell Place. This event is free and open to the public. Registration is encouraged!

    The presentation will take place at the Percy Grainger Home and Studio, a significant local landmark concerning the life and work of Australian-born Percy Grainger (1882-1961): a composer, pianist, arranger, music world celebrity of his time and larger-than-life figure with an unusually fascinating personality. For forty years, from 1921 until his death in 1961, Grainger occupied the house at 7 Cromwell Place, using it as his home base for his world tours, practice studio (there are two pianos and a harmonium inside), and laboratory for his avant-garde musical compositions and experimental music machines. After Percy Grainger’s death in 1961, his widow Ella continued to live in the house until her passing in 1979. This historic house, built in 1893, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in April of 1993.  

    Rebecca Weissman is a bass clarinetist for the Westchester Symphonic Winds ("WSW") an award-winning wind ensemble based in Westchester County, New York. She is a graduate of Ithaca College and the acclaimed Eastman School of Music where Frederick Fennell established the pioneering Eastman Wind Ensemble in 1952.  She has performed with orchestras and chamber ensembles across the United States.

    Rebecca is the founder of Two Fourteen Design a communications company  directed toward digital marketing solutions.  Since Fall, 2022 she has been the Community Outreach Consultant for the Percy Grainger Society.

    • Sun, September 17, 2023
    • 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
    • 7 Cromwell Place, White Plains, NY 10601
    Register

    We invite you to register for our next Third Sunday tour of the Percy Grainger Home and Studio, September 17, 2023 at 2 pm EDT. The Third Sundays program is an outreach initiative, led by volunteers, and designed to welcome diverse groups through focused, thematic tours. We are pleased to announce that Percy Grainger Society President, Dr. Paul Jackson, will be leading the September tour, offering a closer look at Grainger’s approach to and work on Free Music. The presentation will be centred around the newly-conserved Gliding Tones on Whistle, Notes on Recorders machine, one of only two only remaining examples of Grainger's Free Music machines. This event is free and open to the public, but due to space limitations, registration is encouraged.

    For Percy Grainger, Free Music drew its inspiration from the sounds of nature and was music free from the constraints of conventional rhythm and individual pitch. From an early age, he imagined music that would glide continuously across the pitch spectrum, without the need for metrical rhythms and, ultimately, without the need for a performer; the composers’ ideas would be translated directly into sound.

    Elements of Free Music can be found in much of Grainger’s instrumental and vocal compositions, where the use of sliding notes and irregular rhythms often feature. Between 1935 and 1937, Grainger wrote three short pieces – Free Music No. 1, Free Music No. 2 and Beatless Music – which further demonstrated his ideas in practice. Grainger regarded all of his music up to this point as merely a stepping-stone to the full development of Free Music, and he was to increasingly devote his time to this from the late 1940s onwards. Using his White Plains home as a studio, he worked alongside his wife, Ella, and in close collaboration with a young physicist, William Burnett Cross, to design and built machines that were able to produce Free Music without the involvement of a human performer.

    Most of the machines, given Graingeresque names such as the Side-Ridge Clothes-Line-&-Scotch-Tape-Tin Oscillator-Player, or the Kangaroo-Pouch Method of Synchronising & Playing 8 Oscillators, were constructed from wood, paper, cardboard, string, and other found objects scavenged from the house, local hardware stores and the immediate locale. The machines were in a constant state of flux and were often dismantled or repurposed as soon as sounds were recorded. The final machine, the Electric Eye, remained unfinished at the time of Grainger’s death, but was the most sophisticated and was able to produce seamless electronic pitch glides. It is this machine that places Grainger’s experiments in electronic music squarely alongside other experimental composers.

    For forty years, from 1921 until his death in 1961, Grainger occupied the house at 7 Cromwell Place, using it as his home base for his world tours, practice studio (there are two pianos and a harmonium inside), and laboratory for his avant-garde musical compositions and experimental music machines. After Percy Grainger’s death in 1961, his widow Ella continued to live in the house until her passing in 1979. This historic house, built in 1893, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in April of 1993. 

    Dr. Paul Jackson is a pianist, conductor, lecturer, musicologist, and education consultant, who was, for over 20 years, Director of Music and Performing Arts at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK. His publications include contributions to The New Percy Grainger Companion (2010), to Grainger Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal (2012) and to John Ruskin and Nineteenth-Century Education (2018). He is editor of The Grainger Journal and President of the Percy Grainger Society. 

Past events

Sun, April 16, 2023 Spring Open House
Sat, March 11, 2023 Meeting: Membership and Programs Committee
Fri, February 24, 2023 Grainger for Choirs: An Introduction
Sun, February 19, 2023 Third Sundays: Focus Tour
Sat, January 21, 2023 Volunteer Orientation
Sat, October 22, 2022 Meeting: Membership and Programs Committee
Fri, August 19, 2022 Roundtable Rambles
Fri, July 08, 2022 Momentum 2022-23: The PGS Annual Members' Meeting
Fri, May 06, 2022 The Folksongs of Lincolnshire Posy
Sun, April 10, 2022 Spring Open House
Fri, February 11, 2022 Col. Jason K. Fettig: A Ramble with Grainger
Sun, November 14, 2021 WSW Concert: A Salute to Percy Grainger
Thu, September 16, 2021 Grainger Library of Sampled Sounds ("GLOSS")
Thu, July 08, 2021 2021 Annual Members' Meeting
Sun, June 13, 2021 Percy Grainger Home and Studio: Garden Tour and Art Exhibition Opening
Thu, March 18, 2021 Who is Ycrep Regniarg?
Fri, August 14, 2020 Performing Percy Grainger: A Conversation with Sir Andrew Davis
Sun, May 17, 2020 William Wielgus Facebook Recital
Mon, May 13, 2019 Ella Viola Ström and the Slade School of Art
Sun, May 12, 2019 A Musical Prodigy in Melbourne 1887-1895, An illustrated recital by Penelope Thwaites
Sat, May 11, 2019 Percy Grainger's Time in Springfield Missouri
Sun, May 05, 2019 Percy & Friends: Music by Percy Grainger and His Contemporaries
Sun, May 13, 2018 Grainger, Grieg and Folksong
Sun, May 06, 2018 Percy Grainger and his Composer Colleagues
Fri, May 04, 2018 In Dahomey — A Discussion
Thu, May 03, 2018 Percy Grainger--Only Connect
Wed, May 02, 2018 Percy Grainger Piano Mini-Festival
Sun, April 29, 2018 Percy Grainger: A Modern Leonardo?
Fri, May 12, 2017 Historic House Dedication


7 Cromwell Place, White Plains, NY 10601

info@percygrainger.org

Tel: (914) 281-1610

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