Teaching Artistry @ NEC Workshop Series

Some of the most impactful work of teaching artists is helping communities bring their own stories to life through collective music making. In this workshop, Los Angeles-based guitarist, composer, and educator Philip Graulty shares insight into his career and teaching artist practice, particularly his work developing and directing Midnight Strings, a guitar and songwriting program at The Midnight Mission shelter in Los Angeles’s Skid Row neighborhood. Centered on the artistic talents of currently and formerly unhoused and systems-impacted individuals, Midnight Strings provides an opportunity for members of the Skid Row community to learn to play the guitar and write their own songs in an intimate, small-group setting. Each iteration of the program culminates in a concert in which participants present and perform their original songs with support from professional musicians from the L.A. music community. With a focus on community classrooms and the importance of centering a songwriting curriculum around relationships, Midnight Strings has become a safe space for participants to find their voice, belong to a community, and build meaningful and lasting relationships through music.

Philip Graulty is a Los Angeles-based guitarist, composer, and educator whose musical world lies at the intersection of classical, jazz, and folk music traditions. His artistic practice explores music as a form of memorial, offering, and healing, and his unique approach to the guitar is informed by myriad styles, including classical guitar, contemporary jazz, and fingerstyle blues.

Philip’s latest album, Still Life, released in May 2024, is a collection of pieces for solo guitar, each one dedicated to a different person in the artist’s life. Exploring themes of friendship, longing, nostalgia, and love, the album’s title references our collective stillness during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the artist’s practice of finding stillness through playing the guitar during times of grief. His debut solo EP, Won’t You Help To Sing?, a collection of hymns and protest songs, was released in 2021.

In addition to his work as a solo artist, Philip is a co-founder of Bridge to Everywhere, a new music collective that explores connections between diverse musical traditions, and the guitar ensembles Los Angeles Electric 8 and Ikat Quartet. He is also a regular collaborator with the chamber group Salastina and the experimental opera company Four Larks.

Outside of performing and composing, Philip is a dedicated educator and social justice advocate. He is on the music faculties of Mount Saint Mary’s University and Cal Poly Pomona and is a teaching artist with Street Symphony, an arts nonprofit that utilizes music to create opportunities of human connection to homeless and incarcerated communities in Los Angeles.