INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED STUDY CONCERT SEASON OPENS OCTOBER 15, 16

PRINCETON, N.J. - September 30, 2004 - The Institute for Advanced Study has announced the schedule for its 2004-05 concert series. Entitled "Recent Pasts 20/21," the series will explore a variety of aesthetic perspectives in Western art music of the 20th and early 21st centuries. This year is the second season of the projected four-year series, which is sponsored by the Institute’s Artist-in-Residence program.

Opening this year’s season will be Pianomorphosis, featuring pianist Bruce Brubaker, on October 15 and 16 at 8:00 p.m. in Wolfensohn Hall on the Institute campus. The event brings together minimalist music of John Adams, John Cage, Alvin Curran, and Philip Glass; literary texts by authors including T.S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, and Virginia Woolf; theatrical lighting; and movement. Pianomorphosis, notes composer and Institute Artist-in-Residence Jon Magnussen, "Takes the concept of the piano recital into a different realm, by combining minimalist piano music with literary, visual, and theatrical resources."

Two other events are associated with Pianomorphosis. "Hearing and Seeing" presents minimalist composer Philip Glass in conversation with Brubaker and Magnussen; the conversation will take place on October 15 at 4:00 p.m. in Wolfensohn Hall. Brubaker and Magnussen will offer a Concert Talk on October 16 at 6:45 p.m. in Wolfensohn Hall, exploring questions about the evolution of the piano recital. 

Brubaker studied at the Juilliard School, where he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Music, and, in 1992, a doctorate in Musical Arts. Currently on the piano faculty of the New England Conservatory, he has also taught at Juilliard, where he created a performance course that brought together musicians, actors, and dancers. Brubaker has appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic; New York’s Orchestra of St. Luke’s; as part of the St. Louis Symphony’s Copland 2000 Festival; and at the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the Hollywood Bowl, Tanglewood, and elsewhere. 

He has performed Philip Glass’s piano music in concerts and broadcasts throughout the world. Brubaker’s most recent CD, inner cities, is a recording of piano music by Alvin Curran and John Adams, including Brubaker’s transcription of a portion of Adams’s opera, Nixon In China.

Philip Glass, after graduating from the University of Chicago, attended the Juilliard School in New York City. He also studied with Vincent Persichetti, Darius Milhaud, William Bergsma, and Nadia Boulanger. In 1974 he composed for his own group, the Philip Glass Ensemble, work culminating in Music in 12 Parts. In 1976, with Robert Wilson, he produced the opera Einstein on the Beach, a five-hour epic now seen as a landmark in 20th-century music and theater. 

Glass has collaborated with a variety of artists and expanded his repertoire to include music for opera, dance, theater, chamber ensemble, orchestra, and film. In 2003 Glass premiered the opera, The Sound of A Voice; created the score to Errol Morris’s film The Fog of War; and released the CD, Etudes for Piano, Vol. 1, No. 1-10.

Other film work includes scores for A Brief History of Time, The Truman Show, and Scorsese’s Kundun. Cooperative recording projects have involved David Byrne, Paul Simon, and Suzanne Vega. 

FORTHCOMING CONCERTS AND LECTURES

Future concerts and lectures in the Institute series will include "A Princeton Connection" in December, highlighting music by Princeton composers. On December 3 at 8:00 p.m., pianist James Goldsworthy will accompany soprano Judith Bettina, and on December 4 at 8:00 p.m., pianist Blair McMillen will perform. Composer Paul Lansky will speak on December 2 at 4:00 p.m. and composers Milton Babbitt and Andrew Imbrie on December 3 at 4:00 p.m.

Scheduled for February 25 and 26, 2005, at 8:00 p.m,. is CONTINUUM®, an ensemble directed by Cheryl Seltzer and Joel Sachs, which features music by composers of the South Caucasus. Sachs will speak on "The Musical World of the South Caucasus" on February 25 at 4:00 p.m. There will be a Concert Talk on February 26 at 6:30 p.m. 

Concert tickets are free but must be reserved; no tickets are necessary for the talks. For ticket information, or further information about the Institute for Advanced Study’s Artist-in-Residence Program, call (609) 734-8228 or see www.ias.edu/air.