FELIX GRAHAM, ED.D.C.T.
Projects
About Dr. Felix
Felix Graham, ED.D.C.T., is an NYC-based artist, academic and author whose creative and academic work explores the juxtaposition of voice, gender & identity. Dr. Felix provides vocal coaching for trans/GNC singers and leads courses and workshops on trans voice, music & identity, and disability and inclusion in the arts. He is the artistic director & founder of TRANScend Choral & Community Music Foundation – a non-profit dedicated to gender-inclusive music and music education in New York City and home to the TRANScend Ambassadors.
Artist
Dr. Graham has had two careers as a performer: initially as a classical singer & pianist, then post-transition branching into cabaret/queer musical theatre, which included a role in Decadence, where he was the first openly trans-masculine singer to perform at the Friar’s Club.
As a composer/director, Dr. Graham’s work examines singing as performance art, exploring the sonic & emotional shift of the western canon when performed by GNC voices/ensembles. His first large-scale composition, Stations of the Lost: A Trans Requiem, was written as a subversion of the traditional liturgical memorial, using the gnostic poetry of the gender-bending occultist Alastair Crowley – the “wickedest man on earth.”
Most recently, Dr. Graham was in residence at The Flea (NYC), where he presented the off-Broadway debut of a new, commissioned work, The Passion of Miss de Marco, Unemployed Stenographer – a lesbian true crime musical, exploring queer domestic violence and the role of media in our understanding of historic queer icons.
ACADEMIC
As an academic, Dr. Graham’s body of work falls under the category of “anthropologist whose lens is voice,” and includes robust research, lecture and studio practices. Trained originally as a singing voice specialist, his private studio focuses on vocal health and habilitation, as well as guiding clients in reconciling their voice and personal identity.
His classroom and public lecture practice covers pedagogy, disability and inclusive artistic methods. Courses taught include disability arts education, inclusive artists education methods, choral and vocal methods, as well as core music education topics (aural skills, music theory, applied voice and piano, song writing).
An active researcher in the areas of voice science, gender and vocal/choral music education, Felix has presented at home and abroad on singing voice disorders, transgender/developmental voice and non-hierarchical choral methods. His most recent publications are on student-centered approach to trans voice pedagogy and functional voice disorders
ARTIST STATEMENT
My work as an artist can be roughly categorized as Before Transition and After Transition. Before Transition was escapism – dysphoric sublimation through the performance of highly-stylized gender roles in opera and classical music. After Transition has been deconstructing gender and voice and allowing myself the freedom to put my deepest feelings about (and rebellion against) gender into physical form. I work in multiple complementary disciplines, all of which examine the intersection of singing, gender, and identity. The underlying premise of all my artistic output, regardless of the medium, is inserting non-conforming voices into places society has decided we don’t belong.