MAX GRAFE
COMPOSER
Biography
Max Grafe writes music characterized by "jagged declamations and muffled filigree" (Gramophone) that engages with the dramatic, collaborative nature of performance in the context of a highly personal, distinctive approach to musical modernism. Max’s music has been commissioned and programmed by a wide range of ensembles—including the New York Philharmonic, the New York New Music Ensemble, Quince Ensemble, ensembleNEWSRQ, and Duo Entre-Nous—and has been featured at numerous music festivals across the country, including the Tanglewood Music Center, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and RED NOTE New Music Festival. Current and upcoming projects include collaborations with Hypercube, Kahl & Nyce Duo, and pianist Benjamin Hochman. Max is a founding member of New York-based composer collective ICEBERG New Music, which recently concluded its sixth annual season in collaboration with Decoda and poet Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz. Max’s music appears on commercial recordings by the New York Philharmonic, Quince Ensemble, Duo Entre-Nous, pianists Jenny Lin and Mika Sasaki, and harpist Emily Levin.
Max has received several of the most prestigious awards available to emerging American composers, including a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a William Schuman Prize from BMI, two consecutive Palmer Dixon Prizes from the Juilliard School, and a Morton Gould Young Composer Award from ASCAP. He is the winner of the 2023 RED NOTE New Music Festival Composition Competition and the 2023 Roy Minoff Composition Competition from Kent State University.
Max is a member of the music faculties at Montclair State University and the Kaufman Music Center. He received a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Juilliard School in 2018, a Master of Music degree from Juilliard in 2013 and a Bachelor of Music degree from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University in 2011. Further studies have taken place at Mannes College of Music, the Freie Universität Berlin, the Aspen Music Festival and School, and the Tanglewood Music Center. Max's music is available through the American Composers Alliance.
CV
Selected Performances
You, sir, are a space, too premiered by Decoda with Kornfeld & Andrews, Tenri Cultural Institute, New York, NY, May 19, 2023
Quintet performed by David Gresham, MingHuan Xu Choi, Dominic Johnson, Nick Photinos, and Winston Choi, RED NOTE New Music Festival, Illinois State University, Normal, IL, March 29, 2023
Peacemaking premiered by Blueshift Ensemble and Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, Crosstown Theater, Memphis, TN, August 19, 2022
Rumpelstilzchentanz performed by Cornelia Sommer and Rémy Taghavi, International Double Reed Society conference, Boulder, CO, July 30, 2022
An effulgence fills the southern boughs performed by the New York New Music Ensemble, Resnick-Passlof Foundation, New York, NY, February 14, 2022
Shadow Theater premiered by ensembleNEWSRQ, First Congregational Church, Sarasota, FL, October 11, 2021
Rumpelstilzchentanz premiered by Cornelia Sommer and Kathleen McLean, Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, New York, NY, October 1, 2021
Anemoi Dances premiered by Duo Entre-Nous, North American Saxophone Alliance conference, Tempe, AZ, March 6, 2020
Peal premiered by Hypercube, Tenri Cultural Institute, New York, NY, February 15, 2020
Trio Sonata premiered by Ginevra Petrucci, Chelsea Wimmer, and Gleb Kanasevich, Greenwich House, New York, NY, May 26, 2019
Lalia premiered by Ekmeles, DiMenna Center for Classical Music, New York, NY, March 9, 2019
Accretion premiered by Jenny Lin, (le) poisson rouge, New York, NY, January 17, 2019
Taches lumineuses - un amas d’étoiles dans une constellation performed by Kelley Barnett, MISE-EN_PLACE, New York, NY, December 14, 2018
Taches lumineuses - un amas d’étoiles dans une constellation performed by Jenny Davis, Crosstown Concourse, Memphis, TN, August 18, 2018
Quintet premiered at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Lensic Performing Arts Center, Santa Fe, NM, August 15, 2018
Pour les Agréments premiered by Yarn/Wire at Tenri Cultural Institute, New York, NY,
April 20, 2018
Taches lumineuses - un amas d’étoiles dans une constellation premiered by Kelley Barnett, MISE-EN_PLACE, New York, NY, January 15, 2018
Idumea (Shape Note Paraphrases I) premiered by the New York Virtuoso Singers, Saint Ignatius of Antioch Church, New York, NY, October 29, 2017
Obsidian Liturgy performed by Mika Sasaki, Marian Anderson Recital Hall at Danbury Music Centre, August 12, 2017
Fire Chorus premiered by fellows of the Tanglewood Music Center, Seiji Ozawa Hall, Lenox, MA, July 2, 2017
An effulgence fills the southern boughs performed by Blueshift Ensemble, Crosstown Concourse, Memphis, TN, June 15, 2017
To mend, once riven and Psalmodia performed by Hyunjung Kim, Bayla Keyes, and Victor Cayres, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, New York, NY, June 5, 2017
Karst premiered by New Thread Quartet, DiMenna Center for Classical Music, New York, NY, April 20, 2017
An effulgence fills the southern boughs premiered by Contemporaneous, DiMenna Center for Classical Music, April 6, 2017
The Palace of the Windowed Rocks (Tanguy Responses I) performed by the New Fromm Players, Seiji Ozawa Hall, Lenox, MA, August 14, 2016
To mend, once riven premiered by Julia Glenn and Joseph Yungen, The Juilliard School, New York, NY, May 2016
Jangle performed by Dannielle McBryan, Colin Davin, and Emily Levin, Saint Peter’s Church, New York, NY, March 15, 2016
Obsidian Liturgy premiered by Mika Sasaki, Paul Recital Hall, The Juilliard School, New York, NY, February 11, 2016
Jangle premiered by Lauren Williams, Colin Davin, and Emily Levin, Morse Recital Hall, The Juilliard School, New York, NY, February 10, 2016
Kheir - Fantasy for Clarinet and Sinfonietta performed by Shih-yen Chen and the University of Texas at Austin New Music Ensemble under Dan Welcher, Bates Recital Hall, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, September 30, 2015
Excerpts from mars one for voice and guitar with text by William Emery premiered by Amanda DeBoer Bartlett and Jesse Langen at the 2015 Resonant Bodies Festival, New York, NY, September 10, 2015
The Palace of the Windowed Rocks (Tanguy Responses I) premiered by FLUX Quartet, Saint Francis Auditorium, New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, NM, August 7, 2015
Kheir - Fantasy for Clarinet and Sinfonietta premiered by Miao Zhao and the New Juilliard Ensemble under Joel Sachs, Alice Tully Hall, New York, NY, April 10, 2015
Seaven Teares with choreography by Silas Farley premiered at the School of American Ballet as part of the New York City Ballet’s 2015 Choreographic Institute, New York, NY, March 13, 2015
Bismuth - Variations for Orchestra premiered by the New York Philharmonic under Alan Gilbert, Avery Fisher Hall, New York, NY, June 7, 2014 (selected for performance through the American Composers Orchestra’s EarShot network)
Three Madrigals performed by Quince Ensemble, HERE Arts Center, New York, NY,
March 7 & 8, 2014
Janus Ponders the Cosmos performed by bassoonist Sasha Gee Enegren and students from Manhattan School of Music, New York, NY, January 2013
Janus Ponders the Cosmos premiered by bassoonist Elizabeth Garrett and students from Yale School of Music, New Haven, CT, November 11, 2013
Moon Cycles performed by newEar Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, Kansas City, MO, September 20, 2013
Three Madrigals performed by Quince Ensemble, Chicago, IL, August 18, 2013
Three Madrigals premiered by Quince Ensemble, Bowling Green, OH and midwest tour,
October 2012
Moon Cycles premiered by the East Coast Contemporary Ensemble at Highpoint Composition Seminar, Woodstock, NY, May 2010
Commercial Recordings
Fresh Ink
Something Borrowed - Emily Levin, Iris Records, 2017; The Magic-Bean-Buyer
Obsidian: Mika Sasaki plays Clara Schumann, Yarlung Records, 2016; Obsidian Liturgy
Selections from NYPHIL BIENNIAL 2014, New York Philharmonic, 2015; Bismuth - Variations for Orchestra
Realign the Time, Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble, 2014; Three Madrigals
Awards, Honors, and Scholarships
With winning work where applicable
American Modern Ensemble Composition Competition, Tier III, honorable mention, 2015; Kheir - Fantasy for Clarinet and Sinfonietta
William Schuman Prize, BMI Student Composer Awards, 2015; Kheir - Fantasy for Clarinet and Sinfonietta
Palmer Dixon Prize, The Juilliard School, 2015; Kheir - Fantasy for Clarinet and Sinfonietta
Charles Ives Scholarship, American Academy of Arts and Letters, 2015
New York Philharmonic EarShot New Music Readings, June 2014; Bismuth - Variations for Orchestra selected for premiere performance
Palmer Dixon Prize, The Juilliard School, 2014; Janus Ponders the Cosmos
Jacobs School of Music Dean’s Prize in composition, 2011; Moon Cycles
Fellow, Highpoint Composition Seminar, Woodstock, NY, May 2010
ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, 2007
Teaching
Adjunct Associate Professor, Hofstra University, music department, 2019-
Faculty, Special Music School and Lucy Moses School at Kaufman Music Center, music theory and composition department, 2015-
Faculty, The Juilliard School, pre-college division, music theory department, 2016-2017
Teaching Fellow, The Juilliard School, music theory and analysis department, 2011-2016
Education
The Juilliard School: Doctor of Musical Arts in Composition, 2018
Studies with Christopher Rouse and Steven Stucky
Tanglewood Music Center, Summer 2016
Elliott Carter Memorial Composer Fellowship
Studies with Michael Gandolfi, Marc Neikrug, and Osvaldo Golijov
The Juilliard School: Master of Music in Composition, 2013
Studies with Christopher Rouse
Aspen Music Festival and School, Individual Studies Program, Summer 2012
Susan and Ford Schumann Fellowship in Composition Studies
Studies with George Tsontakis
Indiana University Jacobs School of Music: Bachelor of Music in Composition, 2011
Studies with Don Freund, Michael Gandolfi, W. Claude Baker, David Dzubay, and Aaron Travers
Freie Universität Berlin Summer Composition Course, Berlin, Germany, Summer 2010
Studies with Samuel Adler
Mannes College of Music Preparatory Division: Honors Diploma in Composition and Bassoon, 2007
Studies with Keith Fitch