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Trevor Grahl (b. 1984) is a Canadian-Dutch composer based in Amsterdam. Raised in Rankin, Ontario, he studied at McGill University and the University of California, San Diego, and completed further studies at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam with Richard Ayres.
He has taught composition, orchestration and instrumentation at the Koninklijk Conservatorium since 2016. He is also artistic assistant at the Orgelpark in Amsterdam and a leading advocate for the hyperorgan, an instrument he has introduced to a generation of composers, a good example of what draws him as a teacher: how a new instrument reshapes what a composer can imagine in the first place.
His music is characterised by dense referential layering, in which the sound of other musics becomes structural rather than decorative. In 2025 he received the Matthijs Vermeulen Prize, the Netherlands' most significant composition award, for Śpiewnik for organ, bass drums and electronics. The previous year he shared the Willem Pijper Prize for Music for Malmö. His album Of Ancient Days (Cobra Records, 2023) was the first commercial recording of a work written specifically for the hyperorgan, and his double cello concerto Lightweight was awarded four stars in de Volkskrant.
Writing for young audiences runs throughout his output, most recently in the children's opera Ταξίδι στη Χώρα των Άσχημων, premiered by the Greek National Opera in June 2025.
Upcoming premieres include an orchestral work for the 190th anniversary of the Reform Club in London, and a new orchestral work for the Münchener Kammerorchester under Bas Wiegers at the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ, both in the 2026-27 season.