Patrick Graham
Montréal 45° 30' 11.46" N, 73° 34' 11.30" W Arts Music Person
Over a 15-year career based in Montreal, Canadian multi-percussionist Patrick Graham has been described as a “master improviser on percussion” who “…stands on the border of several forms of traditional and creative music, embracing the world of rhythm as a whole” (Le Devoir). Patrick displays a talent for fusing a eclectic array of influences, ranging from Japanese percussion through Indian and Irish rhythms to Mediterranean frame drumming, as a well as a passion for new sounds and improvisation. This unique cross-genre approach is reflective of an extensive study of the art of percussion, including a Bachelor of Music from McGill University (Montreal), as well as private training with Glen Velez (New York), Carlo Rizzo (Grenoble), Trichy Sankaran (Toronto), and Taichi Ozaki (Tokyo). In addition, Patrick has attended workshops and master classes at the Banff Center for the Arts, Simon Fraser University, and participated in the Taiko Koh-Kan workshops conducted by the group Kodō, on Sado Island in Japan.
Patrick performs, tours and records regularly with the groups Autorickshaw, Small World Project, La Nef, On Ensemble, Norouet, OktoEcho and many more. Collaborations of note include projects with musicians such as Ganesh Anandan, the Penderecki String Quartet, Jesse Stewart, David Greenberg, Ramasutra, Tetsuro Naito, Kohei Nishikawa, Solorazaf, Peter Herbert, Carlo Rizzo, Pierre Hamon, Kudsi Erguner, Michel Baklouk Merhej, and Bob Brozman. In addition, Patrick has worked extensively with dancer-choreographers Hideo Arai, Tomomi Morimoto, and Geneviève Martin, and recorded soundtracks for Michel Cusson, Ramachandra Borcar, and Benoit Charest. Alongside this busy performing and recording schedule, Patrick is also active as an instructor, teaching percussion and rhythm workshops in Canada, the USA, Japan, India, and China, as well as for the Cirque du Soleil.
In 2009, Patrick released his first self-produced solo CD, ‘Rheō’, featuring genre-bending original music for an array of percussion instruments and a number of outstanding guests: Ben Grossman, Debashis Sinha, Nicholas Williams, Kaoru Watanabe, and On Ensemble. The recording was picked as one of the top 13 albums of the year by the CBC Radio 2 program ‘The Signal’. Patrick Graham is an endorser of Cooperman Drums.