Martin Graff

Martin Graff is a composer-pianist out of Arlington, Virginia, a platinum-medal winner in the 2024 Van Bach International Music Awards, gold-medal winner in the 2024 Saint-Saëns International Music Competition, bronze-medal winner in the 2023 Charleston International Piano Competition, and finalist for best classical artist in the 2022 DC Wammie Awards. At four, his family inherited an old, anonymous piano, and Marty surged with an uncontainable energy to climb onto the bench and dig his hands into those eighty-eight bits of clay, instinctually molding them into little aural landscapes. Crude and square at first; at last, faceted gems after a lifetime of practice, polish, and love.

Trips for Piano is the resulting ongoing collection of pieces crafted to transport the listener with soaring melodies, affecting harmonies, and impassioned playing that conjures rainbows from keys of black and white. While the music shares sonic similarities to composers like Claude Debussy, Keith Jarret, George Winston, and Liz Story, Graff’s sound is unique, a blend of tonal classical, jazz, and popular influences. Though there are titles and themes to guide your way, you are free to travel wherever the notes take you. The point is to set mind in motion. Toward what and to what end is for you to decide as you lose yourself in the resonance of these evocative compositions made to move the soul and light the imagination...