Loeffler Alumni Series
Loeffler Alumni Series: Grace McNally
Sunday, November 19, 2023 at 4 PM ET
The Loeffler Alumni Series is sponsored by Robert and Jane Loeffler.
View on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/event/3885760
Levine is committed to building new audiences for music by offering outstanding performances, master classes, and other musical events free-of-charge. This season of Levine Presents is offered free of charge thanks to the generosity of many donors. Please consider making a gift to support these programs.
Program
Bells of Rio | Grace McNally
“Asa Branca” | Luis Gonzaga | arr. Grace McNally
“All the Things You Are” | Jerome Kerns | arr. Baden Powell
“Bossa Nova, New York” | Lionel Hampton, Carmen Costa
“Bahia” | Grace McNally
“Give Me Water” | Grace McNally
“Jarabi” | Malian folk song
Afro-Cuban Lullaby | arr. Leo Brouwer
Un Dia de Noviembre | Leo Brouwer
“Summertime” | George Gershwin | arr. Grace McNally
“Open Door” | Grace McNally | lyrics: Marcus Amaker
About the Artist
For guitarist and songwriter Grace McNally, music is a way to blend traditions, discover connections, and cultivate inspiration. She views her role as a songwriter as a “seamstress weaving different fabrics to create new designs.” Her debut album, Full Circle, explores the musical connections between the American Southeast, Northeast Brazil, and West Africa.
Grace creates a global community through her podcast and radio show, Travel Notes. Conceived during the pandemic and in a city known for cover jam bands and R&B soul audiences, “Travel Notes is a way to travel through music and explore ways we are all connected.” Listeners are transported passport-free to Senegal, Argentina, Japan, and beyond through musical narrative, history, and cultural traditions.
McNally studied under Risa Carlson, a student of Manuel Barrueco, at Levine Music for six years. She participated in regional competitions in Washington, DC, performed at the French Embassy, and participated in master classes with David Russel and Nicholas Goluses. In 2009, she received an invitation to Michelle Obama’s Classical Music Workshop. She graduated in Classical Guitar Performance under Grammy-nominated guitarist Marc Regnier at The College of Charleston with a music scholarship.
After furthering her musical education via traveling through Central and South America, she returned to Charleston in 2019 and began to lay the framework of what would be her album, Full Circle, which was released in May of 2023. She continues to write and perform in the low country and currently is the station manager for Charleston’s first and only community-supported radio station, WOHM Radio 96.3FM.