Accomplished multi-talented musician and spoken word artist Martin Graff, a finalist for Best Classical Artist in the 2022 DC “Wammie Awards”, presents “Sativa”, the exceptional new single from his recently released offering “Trips for Piano” – which is now available for your aural excitement on Spotify and all the major audio services – as well as in the visual medium with a gorgeous, scenic video montage for the song on YouTube.
If we’re being honest, creativity can kill you. Instinctually, we all know this, and yet we tend to view art as a product of our highest nature responsible for bringing immeasurable beauty into the world. Pianist/composer and spoken word artist Martin Graff would be the first to acknowledge that beauty. But as someone who felt the inexorable rush of knowing—from the very first time he laid hands on the keys at the age of 4—that he and the piano were “meant to be,” Graff can tell you that creativity and passion are extraordinarily powerful forces that need to be handled with care. For almost 17 years, in fact, he had to step away.
Trips for Piano, Graff’s album of solo instrumental compositions, chronicles his return to music, along with his newfound experience of creation as a source of grounding, liberation and joy. It took years for Graff to make it back to a state of flow, but Trips for Piano is the sound of realizing that what he felt during that initial love-at-first-sight encounter with the instrument never actually left him. And he wants to remind you that whatever resides in your essence will always be there for you to fall back on too. The album, which doubles as the score for Graff’s long-running spoken word show The Face Zone, is meant to function as a catalyst for setting the audience’s imagination free.
Artistry, Graff feels, belongs to all people—whether we identify as artists or not. And as far as he’s concerned, his music can only truly come to life when the listener brings their own personalized narrative arc to the experience.