TORONTO – For years, Justin Gray has been imagining music that, for the listener, feels like it is coming from every direction.
That vision is now pointing him toward the Grammys.
Gray is the first Canadian to ever be nominated in the best immersive album category — for a project brought to life with 38 Toronto artists from his own orbit.
“I think one of our challenges in Canada is getting the incredible things that we make to the world’s stage,” says Gray during an interview at Humber Polytechnic, where he teaches audio production.
“I love the ability to highlight my friends, to let people know about artists they weren’t aware of.”
“Immersed,” the genre-bending album he’s nominated for, places listeners at the centre of a 360-degree orchestra featuring artists including fusion singer Suba Sankaran, saxophone player Jonathan Kay and co-producer and violinist Drew Jurecka.
“We have a beautiful community, and the ability to share that and have them be recognized along with myself is something I treasure,” adds Gray, who composed, produced and plays bass on the album.
The album also earned a Juno nomination this week for solo jazz album of the year.
He also hopes the Grammy spotlight draws more attention to immersive audio, a form of production that mixes audio in three dimensions. Originally called best surround sound album, the category was renamed in 2019 to reflect evolving technology.
An in-demand audio engineer, Gray has created immersive mixes for artists including Olivia Rodrigo, Snoop Dogg, Arkells and The Tragically Hip, translating their music into Dolby Atmos — a format that places sound beside, behind and above the listener.
Demand for immersive audio has grown over the past decade as the technology has become widely available through streaming platforms, consumer headphones and smaller devices.
“I’ve had the ability to bring what I am passionate about — imagining music in three dimensions — to work with all these artists and reimagine their songs and their productions in this format,” he says.
Gray says the immersive audio category has long been dominated by recordings adapted for immersive sound, rather than music created that way from the outset. That’s what sets his album apart.
“Where I’m helping push this forward is I’m saying, ‘Let’s have space be a part of the composition, let’s have it be a part of the very way that we record it,’” he says.
Recorded over 35 days at Humber’s production studios, “Immersed” blends jazz, Indian classical music, Afro-Cuban rhythms, flamenco and chamber music into a cohesive, cinematic experience — one that’s as much about space as it is about melody.
Rather than writing for abstract instruments, Gray says he composed with specific people in mind.
“I don’t just write music for strings, music for saxophones, music for drums. I write for people,” he says.
“This is not a vocal part, it’s a part for Suba Sankaran. It’s not a drum part, it’s a part for my brother who’s playing drums. I’m imagining them and how they play.”
The result is a record that feels deeply communal and deeply local. Many of the musicians have known Gray since his student days, and several have collaborated with him for decades.
“It’s a pure love letter to the Toronto music community, because they’re awesome,” he says.
That album’s stylistic fusion also reflects Gray’s own background, and the cross-cultural music community that defines Toronto.
A jazz bassist by training, Gray says jazz sits at the core of his musical language. His mother is Indian, and he grew up listening to her culture’s music before later studying Indian classical music in Kolkata.
Those influences later expanded into flamenco, Afro-Cuban, Iranian and West African music, becoming second nature over time.
“It’s not a literal process,” Gray says. “I’m not stirring styles together. I’m imagining a melody, and that’s what comes out.”
What makes that possible, he adds, is Toronto’s music scene, where musicians fluent in multiple traditions regularly collaborate across cultures.
“It’s one thing to imagine it,” he says. “It’s another thing to be part of a community that can realize it.”
Instead of traditional touring, Gray presented “Immersed” through cinema screenings around the world — taking advantage of Dolby Atmos-equipped theatres to deliver the album as a full audiovisual experience.
Gray will attend the Grammys with members of the album’s production team and several of its collaborators, including soul singer Aphrose and keyboardist Todd Pentney. His wife, Natalie, will be there too.
“I told her in high school that I’d take her to the Grammys,” he laughs. “So I’m taking her to the Grammys.”
With the nomination, Gray says he’s mindful of the moment.
“There’s a lot going on in the world,” he adds. “It’s never lost on me how powerful it can be to bring something joyful to the community and the people around you.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 28, 2025.
Read more on the Grammy Awards at thestar.com
