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PianoMorphosis

Bruce Brubaker on all things piano

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Sudden Death

January 29, 2013 by Bruce Brubaker

Some folks probably were comforted by an article that appeared online last year -- an article titled, "Why You Probably Won't Experience Your Own Traumatic Death." "Ever wonder what it would be like to get shot in the head, or have your face smash into a car's windshield? Well, you can stop wondering, because you'll never know -- even if it does happen to you... "It takes as long as 150 to 300 milliseconds (ms) to be aware of a collision after … [Read more...]

Lost Temper

January 5, 2011 by Bruce Brubaker

In a good recent demonstration, Jonathan Bellman suggested that sequential passages in Chopin's piano music have greater content with less equally tempered tuning. The specific pitch proportions within intervals would have subtly changed as key-area changed, with the less equalized tuning of 19th-century pianos. Equal temperament remains a theory but is not a practical piano reality even today. Just listen... Technicians in my school … [Read more...]

Lineage

July 27, 2009 by Bruce Brubaker

After a concert I played in Munich in May, there was a question-and-answer session. (I performed music written by Alvin Curran, Sylvano Bussotti, and Earle Brown.) One audience member asked if a performer of newish music still needs to study Chopin's etudes? Since the pervasive use of photography by visual artists, the question arises in art schools: "Do art students need to learn how to draw?" To the question in Munich, my immediate … [Read more...]

Molecular Piano

June 10, 2009 by Bruce Brubaker

Before, I have spoken of "extreme" piano, related to the phenomenon of "extreme sports" -- I was talking about the masochistic marathon of Alvin Curran's Hope Street Tunnel Blues III. Now, I want to propose the notion of "molecular piano." I'm thinking of "molecular gastronomy" as practiced by Ferran Adrià and many others (focusing on ambiguities and subtle transformations -- from one state of edible matter to another). And, I am thinking too of … [Read more...]

Bruce Brubaker

Recordings like the new American piano music albums I make for ECM, InFiné, Bedroom Community, and Arabesque reach millions of listeners, and break through some old divisions of high culture/pop, or art/entertainment. My fans are listening to Billie Eilish, The Weeknd — even the occasional Mozart track! Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube are allowing music lovers to discover music they could not have found so easily before. Live performances begin to reflect what’s happening online. My performances occur in classical venues like the Philharmonie in Paris, the Barbican in London, at La Roque d’Anthéron, at festivals such as Barcelona’s Sónar and Nuits Sonores in Brussels, and such nightclubs as New York’s (le) Poisson Rouge. Read More…

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PianoMorphosis

Music is changing. Society's changing. Pianists, and piano music, and piano playing are changing too. That's PianoMorphosis. But we're not only reacting... From the piano -- at the piano, around the piano -- we are agents of change. We affect … [Read More...]

Archives

More Me

BB on the web

“Glassforms” with Max Cooper at Sónar

“Glass Etude” on YouTube

demi-cadratin review of Brubaker solo concert at La Roque d’Anthéron

“Classical music dead? Nico Muhly proves it isn’t” — The Telegraph‘s Lucy Jones on my Drones & Piano EP

Bachtrack review of Brubaker all-Glass concert

“Brubaker recital proves eclectic, hypnotic, and timeless” — Harlow Robinson’s Boston Globe review of my Jordan Hall recital

“Simulcast” with Francesco Tristano on Arte

Bruce Brubaker hosts 4 weeks of “Hammered!” on WQXR — “Something Borrowed,” “Drone,” “Portal,” “The Raw and the Cooked”

“Onstage, a grand piano and an iPod” — David Weininger’s story with video by Dina Rudick

“Bruce Brubaker on Breaking Down Boundaries” — extensive audio interview at PittsburghNewMusicNet.com

“Heavy on the Ivories” — Andrea Shea’s story for WBUR about Bruce Brubaker’s performances and recording of “The Time Curve Preludes” by William Duckworth

“Feeding Those Young and Curious Listeners” — Anthony Tommasini in The New York Times on the first anniversary of the Poisson Rouge

“The Jewel in the Fish” — Harry Rolnick on Bruce Brubaker at the Poisson Rouge

“The Post-Postmodern Pianist” — Damian Da Costa profiles Bruce Brubaker in The New York Observer

Bruce Brubaker questioned at NewYorkPianist.net

“Finding the keys to the heart of Jordan Hall” — Joan Anderman in the Boston Globe on the search for a new concert grand piano

“Hearing and Seeing” — Philip Glass speaks with Bruce Brubaker and Jon Magnussen, Princeton, Institute for Advanced Study

Bruce Brubaker about Messiaen’s bird music, NPR, “Here and Now”

“I Hear America: Gunther Schuller at 80” — notes and programs for concert series, New England Conservatory, Harvard University, Boston Symphony Orchestra

“A Conversation That Never Occurred About the Irene Diamond Concert,” Juilliard Journal

Bruce Brubaker plays music by Alvin Curran at (le) Poisson Rouge

Bruce Brubaker

Recordings such the new American piano music albums I make for ECM, InFiné, and Arabesque reach many listeners, and seem to break through some old divisions of high culture/pop, or art/entertainment. My fans are listening to Cardi B, Childish Gambino, Ariana Grande — even the occasional Mozart track! Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube are allowing music lovers to discover music they could not have encountered so easily in the past. Live performances begin to reflect what’s happening online: this year I play at the International Piano Festival at La Roque d’Anthéron, traditional concert venues in Los Angeles, and Boston — as well as nightclubs in Berlin, Hamburg, Paris, Lyon, Geneva, and New York’s (le) Poisson Rouge.

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