New York based composer, performer and educator, Grady Tesch displays a deep emotional palette and unique imagination. Gripping his listeners with a compositional fire that conveys infectious passion and curiosity, while traveling the world to play his music. Tesch has appeared at renowned festivals, such as Montreux Jazz Festival, Umbria Jazz Festival, Costa Rica International Jazz Festival, among others. He’s been able to share the stage with Grammy-award winning greats — Shunzo Ono, Ira Coleman, Jerome Jennings, David Berkman, Huevito Lobaton, among others.
Band leading for Momentum — a New York City based Jazz Collective — has lead to the recent released their first EP entitled, Aséna, which has been meet with great excitement. The Collective has performed at such notable festivals and venues,WildflowerFestival 2023, Bar LunÀtico, and the Sō Percussion artist series Brooklyn Bound.
Quick with the pen, Tesch composes music for on and off the screen as well, including recent original scores for the films Devil in a Red Dress (2021), Caretaker (2021) and All Riders (2020) which won the 2021 Carl Lerner Award, 1st Place Audience Choice Award in 2021 First Run Festival, Vimeo Staff Pick and BAFTA Shorts Festival selections. Additionally, Tesch co-founded and runs Sol Music, an in-house film music company.
As an educator he lead the percussion program at WHIN Music Community Charter School , a school dedicated to bringing the revolutionary music pedagogy of El Sistema to its local community.