Denice Raymundo Grant

1961 - 

Denice Raymundo Grant, a singer and pianist, was born in Brazil, the daughter of missionary parents. She began her musical studies at age four. When her family moved to Portugal in 1973, she studied piano at the Lisbon National Conservatory, and two years later, when they moved to Canada, she was able to continue study at the Toronto Royal Conservatory.

Grant completed a B.Mus. Ed. at Walla Walla College in 1983, studying voice with Marianne Scriven and piano with Leonard Richter. She subsequently received an M.Mus. in piano performance and pedagogy from Northern Illinois University as a student of Donald Walker. She completed a D.M.A. in piano performance at the University of Washington in 2012, where she studied with Craig Shephard.

Following a move to Seattle in 1990, she was employed as company pianist by the Pacific Northwest Ballet, and then by the Houston Ballet in the year 2000. Grant subsequently returned to the Seattle area, where she now has a piano and voice studio, is involved in chamber music, and has accompanied several professional choruses in the area, including the Bellevue Chamber Chorus, the Northwest Girl Choir, the Choir of the Sound, and The Seattle Choral Company. She was a pianist in a 1999 recording of Carmina Burana by SCC.

She has also worked as an orchestral and rehearsal pianist with the Seattle Opera, the Seattle Symphony Summer Sings, the Bellevue Symphony, the Intiman Theatre, and for the Seattle Suzuki Institute. She performed Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major with the Seattle Philharmonic, Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 1 in G Minor with the Rainier Symphony in April 2006, Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major in November 2006 with the Port Angeles Symphony, and Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Seattle Philharmonic and the Skagit Symphony.

Grant, who recently rejoined the Adventist church, divides her musical career between singing and playing the piano, and following in the steps of her missionary father. She frequently preaches and performs, wanting to create a greater awareness of how much our heavenly Father loves us and how He yearns to be re-united with us. She teaches K-12 Music at Skagit Adventist Academy and recently founded The Queen Women’s Choir.

Grant served as organist at Shoreline Calvin Presbyterian Church from 2002 to 2008. At that time she became music director at the Mt. Vernon Presbyterian Church, a position she still holds. She also is the choral and band instructor at the Skagit Adventist Academy.

Her vocal career is devoted mainly to missionary endeavors such as fundraisers for charities and causes, the closest to her heart being the Huruma Children's Home in N'gong Hills, Kenya, an orphanage started by Mama Ziporah. She recently released a sacred vocal CD titled If My People . . . Who are Called by My Name . . . Will Pray . . . .

dg/ds/2014

Sources: Information provided by Denice Raymundo Grant, 2007 to 2014; personal knowledge.