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PianoMorphosis

Bruce Brubaker on all things piano

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Construction Zone

October 29, 2013 by Bruce Brubaker

“Down below, in the dark of the street lamps, Eusebius said, as if to himself: Beethoven—what lies within this word! Beautifully, within the deep ringing of the syllables, sounds an Eternity.” (“Unten im Laternendunkel sagte Eusebius wie vor sich hin: Beethoven — was liegt in diesem Wort! schon der tiefe Klang der Sylben wie in eine Ewigkeit hineintönend.”) -- Robert Schumann, 1835 Also, this begins with a statue. Every day I'm in the Jordan … [Read more...]

Catalyzing Adulteration

December 27, 2011 by Bruce Brubaker

I'm sipping a single-barrel bourbon. Rather strong. I add some drops of water, and then a few more. And the extraordinary, intense dark taste comes into sharp focus. It's like adding adrenaline to my playing of Brahms's music in Jordan Hall. Or adding salt to soup (more if it's cold). Or adding momentary touches of pedal to an already carefully played legato phrase of piano music. … [Read more...]

To the left

March 7, 2011 by Bruce Brubaker

There was a nail in the old Carnegie Hall stage floor that marked the precise spot where the leg of Vladimir Horowitz's piano was to be positioned. Neurosis? Or careful attention to sonic detail? I was not very satisfied with the way I was playing -- near the end of a three-hour rehearsal at Wigmore Hall in London. My friend David Rick suggested that the piano be moved back, much closer to the rear wall of the Wigmore stage. The move was made … [Read more...]

Rattle

December 17, 2009 by Bruce Brubaker

The pianist Fou Ts'ong played a solo concert in Jordan Hall including Chopin's Opus 35 Sonata. In the famous "Funeral March," he made an unbelievable racket with the left-hand trills. They were noisy, unpleasant, almost veering out of control. In a masterclass at New England Conservatory, during that same visit to Boston, Fou Ts'ong manifested such subtly refined attention to details of sound, and line, and phrase. Everything. But, those trills … [Read more...]

Ascent

October 5, 2009 by Bruce Brubaker

There's a certain pride associated with rising melodic lines -- in much nineteenth-century music. Singing soars, and in soaring affirms something very positive about being human. As pitch rises, we might get louder, more tonally intense, more emotional. In other music, high registers are thin. Earlier instruments and techniques may corroborate this thinness: no steel "E" strings on eighteenth-century violins, singing voices differently … [Read more...]

Bruce Brubaker

Recordings such as 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 Frank Ocean, Skrillex, Nicki Minaj — even the occasional Mozart track! Spotify, iTunes, Twitter, YouTube allow 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. 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

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