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Minnesota Varsity: Where are They Now? - Grant Luhmann

Grant Luhmann
Grant Luhmann
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Composer Grant Luhmann of Lino Lakes, Minn., was a Minnesota Varsity 2013 Showcase Composer. He recently updated Classical MPR's Christine Sweet with his latest news.

Grant Luhmann, 2013 Showcase Composer
Age: 19
Hometown: Lino Lakes, Minn.
Attends: Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, Bloomington, Ind. (major in composition with a concentration in oboe performance)

First, I just want to express my gratitude for all things MPR! Although I now spend most of my time outside Minnesota, I'm able to tune in every day courtesy of the streaming app. Thanks, guys!

I've stayed quite busy since my time with Minnesota Varsity. Just recently, I completed a work commissioned by a consortium of eleven college, high school, and community bands spread across Minnesota and Wisconsin, which has been simply a wonderful learning and professional experience. I also completed a large-scale concerto for tuba and orchestra commissioned by the Brazosport Symphony in Texas. The piece has an upcoming premiere this November and there are future performance opportunities at Indiana University and elsewhere. All of these collaborations have been incredibly rewarding, and I am very much looking forward to more chamber and solo projects for this fall and beyond.

I've also had the good fortune of earning a couple of awards along the way, including a 2014 BMI Student Composer Award and a 2013 ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composers award. Over the summer, I spent six weeks at the Brevard Music Center, making lots of new music and new friends. I've even been able to do plenty of performing, studying oboe at Indiana University, and emphasizing performance of new music.

Minnesota Varsity has provided me with invaluable experiences that I will always treasure, especially the experience of participating in a recorded interview. It can often be can be difficult to clearly articulate thoughts about an art form as abstract as music, and so the interview helped me learn how to organize musical thoughts into words. It had the added bonus of finally being able to see how MPR works from the inside, including an incredible CD collection!

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