This week sees the unveiling of the new hang at Tate Britain, a chronological “walk through” 500 years of British art showcasing the Tate’s extensive collection with old favourites and some surprises along the way.
Previous hangs have attracted criticism for taking a radical thematic approach, but this new display is fresh and accessible. And the refurbished rooms in the Tate’s iconic home on London’s Millbank look fabulous.
Read my complete article here
Who or what inspired you to take up the piano and make it your career?
My mother brought home from the public library a recording by Vladimir Horowitz. Already, I was studying music and learning to play the piano; but it was those sounds that ignited my musical interest.
Who or what were the most important influences on your playing?
Early on, it was recordings of Horowitz (I only wanted to play pieces he played, for example), and earlier pianists, Hofmann, Petri. Later, I went another direction. My teacher at Juilliard was Jacob Lateiner, an extraordinary virtuoso with nearly Talmudic insights! He offered intensely detailed scrutiny of music and high ideals. He was the most important example to me, and he was my friend. At the same time, my awareness of John Cage’s music and my work with it were important. That makes for some combination of compulsive preparation and considerable letting-go in performance.
What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far?
The greatest challenges are simple things, I believe. For virtuosos — or any kind of experts — it’s difficult to resist showing how much you can do, or know, or feel.
Which performances or recordings are you most proud of?
I’m pleased with a new recording of piano music by Meredith Monk that I made with Ursula Oppens. Along with solo pieces, there are 4 new transcriptions of Meredith’s music that I made from pieces that were first written for voices or other instruments.
Do you have a favourite concert venue to perform in?
Many. I play rather frequently in New York at Le Poisson Rouge (LPR). It’s a nightclub where very different kinds of music mingle or collide. One night, I played Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time right before a set by the French star Sylvain Chauveau.
Favourite pieces to perform?
I like performing chamber music. The necessary spontaneity and moment-by-moment awareness when playing with other people make the real pleasure of performing most clear.
What is your most memorable concert experience?
Probably that would be the first time I played in Los Angeles, with the L.A. Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl – but the day before the performance there was an earthquake!
What do you consider to be the most important ideas and concepts to impart to aspiring musicians?
Close listening and curiosity – that’s paying attention!
What are you working on at the moment?
There’s a new piano concerto written for me by William Duckworth. I’m doing a re-editing project based on recordings by Glenn Gould.
What is your present state of mind?
Anxious anticipation. In London at Kings Place on May 19th, I’m offering an improvisation with a backing track I prepared. (As well as composed pieces by Glass, Nico Muhly, and Alvin Curran.) Last season, at the urging of Ran Blake, I did an improv in a public concert. Now I’m hooked.
Bruce Brubaker appears at London’s King’s Place on Sunday 19th May in a concert entitled Plugged and Unplugged: Post-Minimalist Piano Music. Further information and tickets here
Bruce Brubaker is an American artist, musician, concert pianist, and writer born in Iowa. Brubaker trained at the Juilliard School, where he received the school’s highest award, the Edward Steuermann Prize, upon graduation. At Juilliard, where he taught from 1995 to 2004, he has appeared in public conversations with Philip Glass, Milton Babbitt, and Meredith Monk.
Full biography here
The fascinating Rest is Noise festival at the Southbank Centre has now reached its mid-point, with the focus on music created out of oppression and war. In Friday night’s chamber concert at Queen Elizabeth Hall two pieces written in the most straitened circumstances during the Second World War were presented: Shostakovich’s Second Piano Trio, a haunting lament for the tragic victims of the war and conflict in general, and Messiaen’s extraordinary Quatuor pour la fin du temps (“Quartet for the End of Time”), composed and premièred in a German prisoner of war camp. The works were performed by world-renowned musicians – French brothers Renaud and Gautier Capuçon (violin and cello respectively), Denis Kozhukhin (piano) and Jörg Widmann (clarinet). They offered a highly emotional, profound and concentrated performance which demonstrated their commitment to and understanding of this difficult, meaningful repertoire.
Read my full review here
What is your first memory of the piano?
Aged four, coming down the stairs in our house to hear my ten year old sister playing the piano very fast. Then I knew that I wanted to play-the-piano-very-fast!
Who or what inspired you to start teaching?
The discovery that music, more even than dancing (I had wanted to be a ballet dancer), was my love, aged fourteen. I also knew that the psychology of it: the relationship with the teacher, as well as the music, was intrinsically important. By that time I had had a critical teacher who’d put me off, and a relaxed teacher who taught nothing much, but didn’t criticise, which was more successful. And I wanted to explore, understand and develop piano teaching from all of these points of view.
Who were your most memorable/significant teachers?
They all had something very valuable to offer in very different ways. If I were to pick one, it would be Joan Barker who taught me as a postgraduate at Trinity College of Music after I had gained my piano teaching Diploma as well as my Degree. Her superb technical teaching (completely in line with the body’s natural movement) and inspirational musicianship gave me all the tools I needed to perform and teach securely and successfully.
Most memorable/significant teaching experiences?
Seeing students having Aha! moments, grinning from ear to ear, able to play and do what they’ve always wanted to be able to play and do.
What are the most exciting/challenging aspects of teaching adults?
Helping them to play the music that they love, as soon as they can, with fingers that have never done anything like it before.
What do you expect from your students?
That we work together: they tell me what they want to learn, and I help them get there.
That we are realistic: they turn up to lessons even when there has been no time to practise, and we focus on encouragement and support throughout.
What are your views on exams, festivals and competitions?
These are all wonderful if they motivate students, and if students feel that their playing is valued and appreciated. But they can be enormously damaging when students feel unfairly criticised, unappreciated and unsupported.
All such events should be a celebration of the student’s achievements and focus on the positive: If students are told what they have achieved, and what they can do, they do it even more and even better. Nothing else needs be said in a public or formal situation.
What do you consider to be the most important concepts to impart to beginning students, and to advanced students?
Most piano players want to be able to sit down and play wherever there is a piano, whether or not they have any written music with them. So I teach my students to play by ear and improvise, in a very simple step-by-step system, which involves important concepts such as pulse, tonality, harmony, phrase and form. That way they are always to play something whether at home to relax, or in a friend’s house, pub or hotel foyer.
Who are your favourite pianists/pianist-teachers and why?
Martha Argerich for her sheer passion and lightening speed at the piano!
“A teacher and facilitator at heart, I help people help themselves, identify aims and issues, make connections, add depth, develop strengths and skills, and succeed.”
Lucinda Mackworth-Young
For further information please visit Lucinda’s website
The Cross-Eyed Pianist 