Percy Aldridge Grainger (1882–1961) was a native of Brighton, Australia. He began studying piano at a young age with his mother, who was a professional teacher. At age thirteen Grainger left Australia to attend the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, Germany. 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, such as Frederick Delius and Edvard Grieg. He became a champion of Nordic music and culture, and he expressed his enthusiasm through private letters. In 1914, he moved to America where he would live the rest of his life. At the outbreak of World War I Grainger enlisted as a U.S. Army bandsman, shortly after he was promoted to the Army Music School. In 1919, he became a U.S. citizen and made a worldwide concert tour. After his mother’s death in 1922 he became increasingly more involved in education, he became a professor and eventually served as the head of the music department at New York University. He also experimented with music machines that he hoped would supersede human interpretation. In his later years he wrote little new music but continued to give concerts that served to revise and rearrange his compositions. After World War II his health declined reducing his levels of activity, and he considered his career a failure. He gave his last concert in 1960, less than a year before his death.