Photos courtesy of Paul Brantley
Paul Brantley once described his music, somewhat dismissively, as Ravel meets Radiohead. Although he understands that definition may have been a bit flippant and perhaps reductive, he admits it might not be completely wrong.
While thematically and sonically diverse, his pieces, whether composed for solo performance, small ensembles or as full orchestral arrangements, follow a certain thematic throughline. They indulge discordance while embracing classic structures. They allow for a certain compositional freedom while adhering to the historical constructs of classically-informed music.
They also sound like Brantley’s memories.
For more than 40 years, as both a musician and composer, Brantley has been in the business of osmosis. He’s made his way discovering, deciphering and, eventually, deconstructing those things that grab his attention. The solitude of Covid, the spaciousness of psychedelia, and even his own creative history, have proven to be found fuel for his classically-inspired work. The secret, he says, is finding ways to open up and accept inspiration and finding those ways, new and creative, that they can be musically translated.
Raised in Augusta, Brantley was born into a family that placed a high premium on music as a means of expression. His father was a musician, as were his brothers Steve and Jamie. He was raised in an environment where records were played, instruments were available and exploration was encouraged.
“It was just always around,” Brantley says. “I was exposed to such a wide variety of music — everything from church music to Miles Davis — and I loved and participated in all of it.”
Brantley credits his family’s innate musical curiosity and broad acceptance of influence, people and those creative places where they intersect as essential to his musical growth. He says, to this day, his work often stems from environment as well as intellectual rigor.
It’s as much about identifying those things, both good and bad, that affect him.
“It’s a sensibility that really allows for the dark and the light,” he says. “The sweet and the sour. And that’s something that I think I’ve always known about myself and my work — that whatever goes in, comes out and that it will be open to those dichotomies.”
Brantley says he credits Augusta’s musical community for its belief in his work and early encouragement and engagement. In particular, he attributes the late Harry Jacobs, founder and original artistic director of the Augusta Symphony, with seeing something in him. He noted that Jacobs commissioned him, while still a very young and relatively untested composer, to pen a string quartet celebrating Augusta’s 250th anniversary in 1986. Jacobs later programmed a piece inspired by the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster with the Augusta Symphony.
“That kind of belief really meant something to me,” he says. “It still means something.”
It is, seemingly, a formula that works. Brantley has found himself in demand, as both an accomplished cellist and gifted composer, for many years. His accomplishments include performances, commissions, appearances and invitations around the world. His orchestral work has been performed by the Atlanta Symphony, the Memphis Symphony, the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas and the Sewanee Festival Orchestra and others. His solo and chamber pieces have been performed by the FLUX Quartet, cellist Dianne Chaplin and violinist Yibin Li in her Carnegie Hall debut. In October 2024, Columbia University presented a concert of his work — including two premieres.
“Being able to do things like that is one of the reasons I live in New York City,” he admits. “There has always been a scene here for that, and, in many ways, things have never been better for contemporary composers.”
It is, Brantley admits, a long way from Augusta, a city he hasn’t returned to in several years. He says after his brother Steve died in 2019 and then his mother in 2022, he found his ties to the Garden City had all but been severed. Yet, he says he has begun to feel the pull of Augusta once again — curious as to how the community might have evolved and, perhaps, might once again inspire him.
It’s all about osmosis.
Noteworthy Achievements
Solo cellist work includes performances or recordings for Trey Anastasio (Phish), Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, Béla Fleck and the Flecktones and others.
Brantley’s orchestral music has been performed by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Manhattan School of Music Symphony, Nashville Symphony, Memphis Symphony Orchestra, The Knights and others.
Brantley is a six-time MacDowell Colony Fellow and has given composition seminars at Yale School of Music, Hunter College, University of Georgia’s Hugh Hodson School of Music and the University of Michigan School of Music.
As seen in the August/September 2025 issue of Augusta magazine.
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