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Plugged and Unplugged: Bruce Brubaker Plays New American Piano Music.on June 14th

  Bruce Brubaker, the Chair of the Piano Department at the renowned New England Conservatory of Music, has performed Mozart with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Brahms on the BBC. His Atherton program will include Philip Glass’s Mad Rush; Nico Muhly’s Drones & Piano (Hawaii premiere); Philip Glass, Etudes No. 4 and No. 5 (1994 version); Missy Mazzoli: Orizzonte (Horizon) and Alvin Curran: Hope Street Tunnel Blues III (Hawaii premiere).  Mr. Brubaker’s recital is scheduled for Friday, June 14th at 7:30, and he has named his concert “Plugged and Unplugged: Bruce Brubaker Plays New American Piano Music.” Tickets are $30 general, $25 for HPR members, and $15 for students with ID. For reservations, call 955-8821 during business hours. 

In live performances from the Hollywood Bowl to New York’s Avery Fisher Hall, from Paris to Hong Kong, and in his continuing series of recordings for Arabesque, Bruce Brubaker is a visionary virtuoso. Named “Young Musician of the Year” by Musical America, he is a frequent performer at New York’s nightclub Le Poisson Rouge. He’s been heard at Leipzig’s Gewandhaus and the Hollywood Bowl. And his debut in HPR’s Atherton on June 14th is an unexpected windfall directly related to the Aloha International Piano Festival, which begins the following day, on June 15th.

Profiled on NBC’s “Today” show, Brubaker’s playing, writing, and collaborations continue to show a shining, and sometimes surprising future for pianists and piano playing. His blog “PianoMorphosis” appears at ArtsJournal.com. His Atherton program will include Philip Glass’s Mad Rush; Nico Muhly’s Drones & Piano (Hawaii premiere); Philip Glass, Etudes No. 4 and No. 5 (1994 version); Missy Mazzoli: Orizzonte (Horizon) and Alvin Curran: Hope Street Tunnel Blues III (Hawaii premiere).

Though an artifact of the Industrial Revolution, the concert grand piano is in the center of a huge range of the new music of today -- music for the acoustic piano alone, and music that combines the familiar sound of the piano with new electronically-produced sounds. Postmodern art often juxtaposes seemingly disparate elements. The program “Plugged and Unplugged” explores the newest frictions and beauties that result. In a “classic” such as Philip Glass’ Mad Rush, or in the first hearing in Hawaii of Nico Muhly’s Drones & Piano, the piano is a thoroughly vital musical participant. Bruce Brubaker is a leader in this new world of musicking, spanning “classical” and “pop” to make something of wide appeal.

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