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How it all began….
At the age of twelve, Kara was on a fast track to becoming an author. She had been appropriately labeled a "head-in-the-clouds dreamer," and she'd already written numerous (unfinished) novels. The lush forests and gentle rolling mountains of Vermont provided a perfect setting for the fiction stories she cooked up, and she'd spent most of her childhood running around in the woods, battling imaginary foes. In other words, like most playmate-deprived children of the backwoods, Kara had passed a lot of time hitting trees with sticks.
What made Kara unique, however, was the fact that, while she was out traipsing the mountains, she was also making up melodies that she sang to herself. She'd been playing piano since the age of seven, so she'd make up little piano parts to accompany her melodies. In a natural course of events, she started stringing these songs together to tell a story.
She didn't think much of it until one fated morning in 9th grade. Kara had gotten a minor role in a high school musical. The play had been an amazing and joyful experience for her, but now the last show was over, and the cast and crew came together to party it up at a 12th grader's house. She was very innocent and very shy then, and the night passed in a loud and raucous fashion. She didn't sleep very well.
But eventually morning rolled over the land in the form of a cold, wet fog. While shivering and wandering the large, run-down house, Kara discovered an old, beaten piano. Some other 9th grade girls were in the tiny backroom that housed it, attempting to make a "cloud" out of a bunch of pillows. Kara took refuge in the piano and started playing very quietly. The girls looked up at her in surprise, asking what she was playing. When she told them it was a song from a musical she'd written, they chorused that she should play more. She did as they asked, singing the parts of the various characters. One by one, more people began pouring into the room. Soon the tiny space was crowded to the brim. Everyone cried and applauded and cooed compliments. The attention was gratifying, but for the most part, Kara felt embarrassed.
Afterward, the 12th grader host of the party took Kara by the hand and led her outside into the yard. With all the dramatics of one who has four years of major-role theatre experience under his belt, he kneeled down in the grass. Feeling awkward, Kara kneeled as well. She felt everyone's eyes staring from the windows of the house.
"Kara, what you've done is amazing," he said. "I'd be impressed if a 12th grader wrote this, let alone a 9th grader."
She responded with blushful thank yous.
"No, I really mean it. Your music reaches people. Everyone in there was crying! I love the song where the soldiers sing about the war…" He continued to pile on the compliments until finally her parents came to her rescue and drove her away.
At this point in time, Kara started wondering if her true calling was music. Her parents, possessing the foresight and wisdom of the middle-aged, wisely procured for Kara a composition teacher by the name of Erik Neilsen. Erik taught her the basics of orchestration so that she could arrange her musical for chorus and small orchestra. And thus began a perilous musical journey that frequently demanded courage and leadership. The Shy Dreamer was faced with the daunting task of becoming a Determined Doer, but that's another story entirely….
OFFICIAL BIO STUFF:
Kara has been composing from an early age. Her local renown began during her school years in East Montpelier, Vermont, where her performances drew crowds of more than 200 people. The capstone project of her arts-based senior year in high school was the performance of her musical A Man Concealed by Time, a Civil War drama she fully scored for small orchestra and choir. In 2001, Kara won the Vermont Young Composers scholarship award for her song "Comic Books and Flashlights."
Kara received her Bachelor of Music in Music Composition from the Ithaca College School of Music in 2005. During her college years, Kara had the opportunity to score for orchestra, small ensemble, and chorus and to conduct and perform her work with as many as 44 musicians in a given concert.
Kara has been performing throughout northern Vermont in various venues. Her music has received airtime on Vermont Public Radio and has been featured on an hour-long local television program, The Studio Sessions. "Kara's beautiful songs speak to the soul – who and what we are, where we've been, and where we are going," says Kenric Kite, from Orca Media Inc. "Her music expresses a utopian quest for understanding, yet acknowledges that understanding all and being perfectly understood by all are not possible."
Kara's classical training shows in her unique blend of folk and modern pop songwriting. Soulful lyrics, complex harmonies, and a touch of humor leave audiences enthralled.
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Name:Kara McGraw
Hometown: Seattle, WA
DOB: 1983-06-08
Instrument: Piano, flute, and vocals
Kara was born in Berlin, Vermont. She graduated from Ithaca College with a Music Composition degree in 2005. She moved to Seattle, Washington in June of 2007 to forward her musical career.
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