Andrew Grainger
Composer and Pianist
Welcome to Andrew Grainger Music
Andrew Grainger is a British/American composer and pianist, living and working in Austin, Texas.
As a composer, Andrew writes concert music in a variety of styles and genres. He holds a Masters Degree in Composition from Kingston University in London and a Bachelors Degree in Music with a piano performance major. His compositions include symphonic, choral and chamber music, much of which you can discover and listen to on this site.
The Music page features a number of orchestral and chamber music compositions. The Piano page features several solo piano recordings of some of my favorite piano repertoire by Haydn, Beethoven and Chopin.
My main focus over the past few years has been to make recordings of some of my orchestral works. Ultimately this orchestral series of recordings will be compiled to make an album. All the orchestral recording sessions are filmed and I am able to male accompanying videos for YouTube. The audio can be found on Spotify, Apple Music etc - indeed, all the streaming platforms pretty much worldwide. Below are the three videos of the works I’ve recorded so far.
Symphonic Dance No.2
Cupid and Psyche Suite
Symphonic Dance No.1
Budapest - Orchestral Recording Session Details
In June, 2023, I directed a four hour recording session in Budapest with some of the finest orchestral musicians from that city. I recorded a **Suite** from my ballet ***Cupid and Psyche*** and my **Symphonic Dance No. 1**. The recordings are in the player above.
There were almost 80 musicians including my wife, Annette, in the cello section.
The Rottenbiller Recording Studio
The iconic Rottenbiller recording studio in central Budapest was built in 1951 and initiated by Zoltán Kodály. Originally owned by the Hungarian state record label "Hungaroton", the studio hosted some of the 20th century's most significant European recordings. All the big composers and musicians recorded at the Rottenbiller studio, which is known as the "Abbey Road" of Budapest: BudapestScoring
Since June of 2023 I have been recording some of my orchestral works with the Budapest Scoring Orchestra in their recording studio in the heart of Budapest. The first session took place when Annette and I went to Budapest for a vacation and I had booked a four hour session with the orchestra. This was to take up one day of our visit to this great city. It was a fantastic experience and something I will never forget. My sister and her husband Brenden were also there which made it even more special. There were almost eighty musicians including my wife, Annette - She was given a very nice cello by the principle cellist to play on for that day, and although I had requested this in advance, it was still a very nice gesture.
The orchestra is made up of some of the finest orchestral musicians in Budapest and although they are a session orchestra, there are many players who seem to play regularly.
In this first session we recorded a suite from my Ballet - Cupid and Psyche and also my Symphonic Dance No.1. The ballet suite was expertly conducted by the main in-house conductor, Péter Iiiényi while I took a deep breath and conducted my Symphonic Dance.
One of the great things about the setup of this recording service - they record lots of movie soundtracks, television scores and commercials - is that you can record remotely with them. Using fast internet technology you can not only see and hear the orchestra in your home studio, you can talk directly to the conductor via Zoom and thereby direct the session from 7000 miles away. This is just mind-blowing.
So, when we got I did my first remote session with the orchestra to cover some music that I had planned to record but had run out of time. This was a thirty minute slot and indeed, many of the musicians were different.
In December, 2024, I did my second remote session - two hours this time. We re-recorded some of the ballet suite movements that I wanted to improve upon and added a few extra movements - this ended up forming the suite along with several of the movements from June 2023. The Cupid and Psyche Ballet Suite was released on...
In December 2025 I had a three hour remote session. Here we recorded my Symphonic Dance No.2 and two movements from my work: Five Tone Poems for Soprano and Orchestra.
In May 2026 I will direct another three hour session to finish off the five Tone Poems.