Joseph Gramley

Photographer: Erin Baiano

GRAMMY award winner Joseph Gramley performs around the world as a founding member of the Silkroad Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma and Rhiannon Giddens, performs with English organist Clive Driskill-Smith in the duo, Organized Rhythm, The Knights, and is widely heard and seen in his dynamic solo percussion and mixed chamber-music concerts. He is proud to have joined the faculty of the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University in August of 2019. Gramley is now Chair of the Department and serves on both the JSoM Executive Council and Administrative Committee.

Gramley's dynamic and exciting performances as a soloist have garnered critical acclaim and enthusiasm from emerging composers, percussion aficionados and first-time concert-goers alike. He is committed to bringing fresh and inventive compositions to a broad public, and each year he commissions and premieres a number of new works. His first solo recording, American Deconstruction,is an expert rendition of five milestone works in multi-percussion's huge new modern repertoire.  His second solo recording, Global Percussion, continues his exploration of important works for the idiom and includes two new commissions and the first release of Philip Glass’ 1 + 1. An invitation from Yo-Yo Ma in 2000 led Gramley to join Mr. Ma's Silkroad Ensemble. In addition to participating in the group's extended residencies in cities and at universities around the globe, Gramley has toured with Mr. Ma and the Ensemble throughout North America, Europe, Central Asia, Australia, the Middle-East and Asia, performing in the world's finest concert halls. Along the way, Gramley has studied percussion styles and instruments from around the globe, collaborating with internationally-renowned musicians from India, Iran, China, Japan, Korea, Spain and Central Asia. He has also appeared on eight top-selling albums with Yo-Yo Ma on multiple labels. Gramley served as Associate Artistic Director of the Silkroad Ensemble from 2014-2017. During Gramley’s tenure, the Ensemble won the 2017 GRAMMY award for ‘best world music’ album, was nominated for ‘Best Music Film’ and recorded the music for Ken Burns’ documentary, ‘Vietnam’ for PBS.

In addition to his solo and Silkroad work, as well as his frequent appearances with chamber groups and orchestras, Gramley performs with the acclaimed British organist Clive Driskill-Smith in the duo Organized Rhythm. The pair's first recording, Beaming Music, was issued in 2007. They released eight new videos on YouTube in 2023 and will release a new record album of dance music spanning five centuries in 2025. They’ve steadily commissioned new works and released videos since that time. Gramley joined The Knights in 2009 and has recorded and performed with them throughout the U.S. and Europe. Joseph Gramley has performed with: the Metropolitan Opera (on stage with Placido Domingo), Pierre-Laurent Aimard (US tour), Orpheus Chamber Orchestra (US and international tours), Orchestra of St. Luke's, Chicago Symphony Orchestra (soloist), Seattle Symphony, Orchestre de Lyon, Dawn Upshaw (US and international tours), David Robertson (Carnegie Hall), Spoleto Festival (soloist), Martha Graham Dance Company, Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Mark Morris Dance Group (US and international tours), New York City Ballet, Glen Velez (US tour), Keiko Abe (PASIC), Aretha Franklin, Elton John and numerous others.

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Born in 1970, Gramley grew up in Oregon and was named a Presidential Scholar in the Arts while a senior at the Interlochen Arts Academy in 1988. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Michigan and attended the Tanglewood Institute and Salzburg Mozarteum during college. He also won a job with the Spoleto Festival Orchestra at age eighteen and spent three summers with them at both Spoleto Festivals: Charleston, SC and Spoleto, Italy. Gramley later returned for three more summers at Spoleto Charleston as a guest artist, recitalist and collaborator. It was there that he premiered Bright Sheng's 'Silver River' with Wu Man. Gramley spent fifteen summers at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont. His first summer, in 1993, he played the Bartok Sonata with Andras Schiff and Bruno Canino and premiered David Horne's 'Phantom Moon'. Gramley made his concerto debut with the Houston Symphony Orchestra after winning their National Soloist Competition, and made his solo debut at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall in 1994. Gramley did his graduate studies at the Juilliard School in New York, receiving his Master’s degree in 1995 and received the Saul Goodman and Khomanoff Scholarships. He made his conducting debut with the Juilliard Percussion Ensemble while a graduate student. He was director or the Juilliard Summer Percussion Seminar for seventeen years, from 1999-2016  He is grateful to have studied with amazing mentors and artists, among them: Michael Udow, Salvatore Rabbio, Daniel Druckman, Gordon Gottlieb, John Wyre, Julie Spencer, Keiko Abe, Glen Velez, John Alfieri, Erik Forrester and Alan Abel.