Gracie Caggiano - Living a Lyrical Life with a Disability

I met Gracie Caggiano when she participated in one of the very first monthly Songwriters’ Sanctuary events presented by the Heartland Song Network at PH Coffee in Kansas City.  I was impressed not only with her songwriting and vocal ability, but her steadfastness in dealing with the physical barriers presented to an artist living with muscular dystrophy confined to a wheelchair.  When I learned she had not yet been on the radio, I knew I had to make that happen and welcomed her to the airwaves in early June 2024. As you will learn in our conversation, In the spring of 2023, Gracie earned a Master of Music in Composition at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory, have previously earned a Bachelor of Music in Composition in 2021 from Florida’s Stetson University.    In her current work, she explores the significance of disability in her own lived experience embracing both her popular music background and classical training. ​ In 2019, Gracie placed third runner-up in a Competition for Student Composers for her choral work The sun kept setting. In spring 2022 at UMKC, she was selected for a composition residency with the university’s Graduate Fellowship String Quartet. The Lyric Opera of Kansas City performed her new micro-opera “Becoming” in June 2023. Later that year, Gracie invited listeners into her poetic space with "To Love Is to Be Honest" and "Don't Look at Me That Way" in anticipation of her debut album “I can't be anything but human” (released May 10, 2024).  You will hear selections from that ep, made possible by a grant and recorded at UMKC.  Enjoy this conversation and the debut radio performance by Gracie Caggiano.