Grace McNally

For guitarist and songwriter Grace McNally, music is a way to blend traditions, discover connection and cultivate inspiration through storytelling. She views her role as a songwriter as a "seamstress weaving different patterned fabrics to create new designs." Her debut album, Full Circle, explores the musical connections between the American Southeast, Northeast Brazil and West Africa.

McNally creates a global community through her podcast and radio show, Travel Notes. Conceived during quarantine "Travel Notes is a way to travel through music and explore ways we are all connected." Listeners are transported passport-free to Senegal, Argentina, Japan, and beyond through musical narrative, history and cultural traditions.

McNally studied under Risa Carlson, a student of Manuel Barrueco, at the Levine School of Music for six years. She participated in regional competitions in Washington D.C., performed at the French Embassy, and participated in master classes with David Russel and Nicholas Goluses. In 2009, she received an invitation to Michelle Obama's Classical Music Workshop. She graduated in Classical Guitar Performance under Grammy-nominated guitarist Marc Regnier at The College of Charleston with a music scholarship.

After furthering her musical education via traveling through Central and South America, she returned to Charleston in 2019 and bean to lay the framework of what would be her debut album, Full Circle which is set to release on May 4, 2023. She continues to write and perform in the low country and currently is the station manager for Charleston’s first and only community supported radio station, WOHM Radio 96.3FM.

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