James Grabsch

Berlin-based multi-instrumentalist, composer, curator, and musical director James Grabsch works across experimental music, performance, and contemporary theater. Trained as a classical singer, the non-binary artist moves fluidly between deconstructed noise, club music, grime, lo-fi textures, and contemporary composition, dissolving boundaries between underground music culture and the performing arts. 

Grabsch has reinterpreted Franz Schubert for Delphi Theater and Deutsche Oper Berlin, deconstructed Richard Wagner for Schauspielhaus Zürich, and contributed music for Elfriede Jelinek’s Schwarzwasser at Berliner Ensemble. They work closely with choreographer Florentina Holzinger as her composer, musical director, and performer for A Year Without Summer, and for the opera Sancta. Their musical collaborations include artists such as Peaches, HEALTH, Modeselektor, WWWings, Robot Koch, and Bbymutha.

Since 2018 they are one of the main curators of CTM Festival Berlin, for which they have developed commissions and collaborations by artists across various interlinked disciplines such as Isabelle Lewis and Loraine James, Black Swan Collective, Mykki Blanko, Yung Lean and Omsk Social Club, Linn da Quebrada, Princess Nokia and many more. Their work has been supported by the Berliner Senat für Kultur, Musicboard Berlin, Initiative Musik, Festspielhaus Hellerau, ASEF Foundation, Red Bull Music Academy and the Goethe-Institut. Under the name Born in Flames, James releases music on various labels, including Monkeytown Records, Infinite Machine, Planet Mu, Präsens Editionen, and Sony/ATV.