Rising Stars: Meet Gracie Caggiano of Kansas City

Today we’d like to introduce you to Gracie Caggiano

Hi Gracie, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
From a young age, I enjoyed writing poems and coming up with melodies in my head, despite my lack of formal music education as a child. I fostered an internal musical landscape, not realizing that these private methods of creation would lead to an intuitive songwriting process. A few months before my fourteenth birthday, my father gifted me my first guitar and I began writing songs shortly thereafter, incorporating chord progressions as I learned them through a virtual course. In high school, I began attending public school and joined choir, show choir, and eventually music theory. In theory class, I recognized an interest in classical composition, and decided to pursue a degree in music composition when I went to college. I spent four years studying composition and voice at Stetson University in Deland, FL, soaking up as much knowledge as possible and experimenting with aesthetics. During undergrad, I also wrote for and performed in an acoustic pop duo called August Moon with cellist Grey Lookadoo, which was an influential experience of blending pop and classical elements. After graduation, I moved to Kansas City, MO to pursue a Master of Music Composition at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory. Throughout my studies, I became more certain of my artistic philosophy, the importance of writing about my lived experience as a disabled artist, and the thrill of blending genres. For my comprehensive project, my advisor Yotam Haber encouraged me to record and produce some of my folk and pop songs, using my expertise in new classical music to inform the arrangements. This led to my debut album I can’t be anything but human, released in May 2024 a year after I graduated from UMKC. Since this release, I have been active in the indie music community in Kansas City, emerging on the scene at local venues such as The Rino. I’ve also had the wonderful opportunity to play a set at Oppenstein Park for Art in the Loop and to write chamber music for local ensembles like And2 Percussion. I expect to continue to build an eclectic and collaborative career, allowing all of my diverse musical experiences to breathe through my work.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
One of the greatest obstacles to my artistic journey is physical access. As a wheelchair user, many performance spaces I’ve been in (for both classical and popular music) have access issues. Unfortunately, I also experienced access issues while in school, often having my studies disrupted by malfunctioning elevators or inaccessible practice rooms. Despite the support I receive from my community–as we seek to confront this issue together–the problem of inaccessibility in arts spaces continues to impact me; yet, I hope my insistence on remaining visible as a disabled artist will be a positive force of influence in local culture.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
My eclectic process involves composing, performing, and producing, and I enjoy partaking in projects for varied media, functions, and genres. Throughout this range, my work is unified by use of colorful harmonic progressions and textures. My community knows me as an emotional songwriter with a poetic spirit and an authentic performer with “hauntingly beautiful” vocals. My recent work also centers uncensored themes of disability experience, which is a story I weave into all my performances. Thus far, I’m most proud of my involvement in the 2024 Art in the Loop Project. In September, I performed a new set of songs on disability topics at Oppenstein Park. It was the most visible I’ve been as an artist in Kansas City, and I had the wonderful privilege of expressing my lived experience. Writing the set was simultaneously terrifying, exciting, laborious, and intuitive. I’m proud of the vulnerable performance I gave and the conversations around disability that began as a result.

Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
People are typically surprised to find out that I write lyrics first when I’m working on a song. Being a trained musician and an untrained poet, my process is the opposite of what might be expected.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.graciecaggiano.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/graciecaggiano
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@graciecaggiano17
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/caggiano-composer
• Other: https://linktr.ee/graciecaggiano