Bio
Forbes Graham (b. 1977) is a composer, musician, sound artist, and visual artist whose work explores themes of simultaneity, perceptibility, transformation and collage. He was born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Silver Spring, MD. He attended American University, studying music composition, in the mid to late 90s and was involved in the DC and Maryland hardcore scenes, playing in a number of bands and releasing music on his label RiceControl. In the early 2000s, he moved to New England, where he got involved with Boston's free jazz and improvised music scenes. His work Encounters I for trumpet, electronics, and voices premiered at Roulette in 2019. In 2020, he was selected to work with the JACK Quartet as a part of JACK Studio. The JACK Quartet premiered String Quartet no. 3 that year, which was dedicated to LaToya Ruby Frazier. The piece For Sam Gilliam I, meant to be a tribute to the pioneering painter as well as a meditation on color, was premiered by loadbang in 2022. Earlier that year, [Switch~ Ensemble] premiered Inflection: Beacon Hill/Roxbury, which was commissioned by a LAB Grant from The Boston Foundation. Inflection: Beacon Hill/Roxbury, was written in honor of the migration of the last African American institution to leave Boston's Beacon Hill neighborhood, the Charles Street AME Church. The Overlook Quartet performed his string quartet Crossing in 2021 at Mass MoCA amongst Linda Sormin's installation Stream. He performed with Michael Pisaro at (the) co-incidence festival in 2017 and has appeared at other music festivals including High Zero, Vision, The Thing In The Spring, and The Festival of New Trumpet. Graham has appeared on over 40 albums, primarily on trumpet, but also on electronics. He is a member of Mobius Artists Group, a collective of experimenting artists. Past composition teachers include Chaya Czernowin, Eric Wubbels and Julia Werntz.
Email: blaqlghtn at gmail dot com
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The web store has been updated and more items will be added in the coming weeks. Additionally, I plan to offer digital downloads directly from this site. Exciting stuff!