Editing Percy Grainger (section)

{{Short description|Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist (1882–1961)}}
{{featured article}}
{{Use Australian English|date=November 2022}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2024}}
{{Infobox person
| name               = {{nowrap|Percy Grainger}}<br /><small>{{nobold|{{nowrap|Australian composer and pianist}}}}</small>
| image              = File:Percy_Grainger_by_Bain_News_Service.jpg
| birth_date         = {{birth date|df=y|1882|7|8}}
| birth_place        = [[Melbourne]], Victoria
| death_date         = {{death date and age|df=y|1961|2|20|1882|7|8}}
| death_place        = [[White Plains, New York]], US
}}

'''Percy Aldridge Grainger''' (born '''George Percy Grainger'''; 8 July 1882{{spaced ndash}}20 February 1961) was an Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist who moved to the United States in 1914 and became an American citizen in 1918. In the course of a long and innovative career he played a prominent role in the revival of interest in [[Music of the United Kingdom|British folk music]] in the early years of the 20th century. Although much of his work was experimental and unusual, the piece with which he is most generally associated is his piano arrangement of the [[Folk dance|folk-dance]] tune "[[Country Gardens]]".

Grainger left Australia at the age of 13 to attend the [[Hoch Conservatory]] in [[Frankfurt]]. Between 1901 and 1914 he was based in London, where he established himself first as a society pianist and later as a concert performer, composer, and collector of original folk melodies. As his reputation grew he met many of the significant figures in European music, forming important friendships with [[Frederick Delius]] and [[Edvard Grieg]]. He became a champion of [[Nordic countries|Nordic]] music and culture, his enthusiasm for which he often expressed in private letters, sometimes in crudely [[racism|racialist]] or [[anti-Semitic]] terms.

In 1914 Grainger moved to the United States, where he lived for the rest of his life, though he travelled widely in Europe and Australia. He served briefly as a bandsman in the [[United States Army]] during the [[First World War]] through 1917–18, and took American citizenship in 1918. After his mother's suicide in 1922, he became increasingly involved in educational work. He also experimented with music machines, which he hoped would supersede human interpretation. In the 1930s he set up the [[Grainger Museum]] in [[Melbourne]], his birthplace, as a monument to his life and works, and as a future research archive. As he grew older, he continued to give concerts and to revise and rearrange his own compositions, while writing little new music. After the [[Second World War]], ill health reduced his levels of activity. He considered his career a failure. He gave his last concert in 1960, less than a year before his death.