James Grant

James Grant is known for the honed craft and immediacy of his musical language and for his ability to compose music appropriate to specific levels of experience. His desire to compose new music for a given repertoire and specific instrumentation has led to many successful consortium commissions, a concept championed by the composer.

He was a first-prize winner of the Washington Cathedral Choral Society’s choral composition competition, the South Coast, CA, Choral Society’s International Choral Competition, and the Louisville Orchestra Competition for New Orchestral Music. In 2002 Grant was one of five American composers to win the Aaron Copland Award.

He has been recognized by Cornell University’s Graduate School of Humanities and Arts and by the Vermont chapter of the National Music Teachers Association for exceptional contributions as an educator, Grant is active as a lecturer and private teacher of composition, often using Skype technology to beam in to seminar rooms and rehearsal halls for brief cyber-residencies.

A dual citizen of the United States and Canada, Grant lives and works in Oxtongue Lake, ON, and in Sarasota, FL., with his wife, fine-art photographer Elizabeth Siegfried.