Memento: an interview with composer and pianist Bruce Wolosoff
When asked about his musical influences, composer and pianist Bruce Wolosoff replies,
“The rock music I heard on the radio when I was a kid. Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart, especially Mozart. The heartbreak and wonder I feel hearing Bill Evans play. Collaborating with Ann Reinking. Listening to paintings.”
All of these and more are evident in Memento, his most recent collection of piano solos, which span styles as diverse as Impressionism, the music of Henry Purcell, and boogie-woogie. Each one of these pieces offer glimpses of deeply-felt moments—a sound world where silences breathe, Purcell morphs into jazz, and paintings are there to be heard as well as seen.
Few composer-pianists have Wolosoff’s depth and breadth of musical experience. He is a serious classical pianist—his Carnegie Hall debut and first recording received glowing reviews—yet all through his training, he maintained a side hustle as a rock and jazz player. When, early in his career, he asked himself why he was performing music by friends rather than his own work, he shifted into composition and never looked back. All of these experiences form the rich ground of his music, and all are present in the finely crafted pieces and expressive playing featured on this recording.
No Dead Guys was created to showcase music with a tune and a beat, composers with a sense of humor, and performers with a passion to “unstuff” classical music and make it accessible to everyone. Wolosoff, who claims that he’s lived long enough to not be ashamed to open his heart and unleash “a beautiful, simply stated tune” embodies all three of these ideals. It’s an honor to feature him on my blog.
Many pianists specialize in one style of music and dabble in another. You are a rare musician who is accomplished as a classical, jazz and rock performer and composer. Who or what encouraged you to devote your career to more than one style?
I don’t want to over-sell my rock and jazz credentials!
I think of myself as a classical musician, but even within so-called “classical music” there are so many different kinds of music.
To be honest, I don’t think about the question of genre all that much. It’s music. When I come across music that I love, I study it and try to figure out how it’s made.
One influence on me was my step-father, who was an amateur jazz pianist. He played in a swing style, with a stride left hand. He would take me to hear pianists like Errol Garner play.
Growing up in the 60’s and 70’s, rock and blues were the musical languages spoken by my generation, and my friends and I would get together to jam and listen to records just about every day after school.
I played in bands and different kinds of ensembles in high school and college while simultaneously pursuing a career as a concert pianist. Those different sides of my musical personality were deliberately kept far apart from each other.
I think it was Jaki Byard more than anyone who influenced me with regard to stylistic openness. Jaki had so much music history under his fingers and could draw on an astonishing range of styles when he played, but Jaki was more consciously aware of genre and style than I am, and he used the contrasts in more of an intentional way.
I seem to be creating some kind of a hybrid language as I go. . . I’m not sure. . . it’s intuitive. I don’t want to over-analyze it.
Your debut recital received a glowing review from Tim Page in The New York Times. You gave world premieres of piano works dedicated to you, including compositions by Daron Hagen and Richard Danielpour. Your 1986 debut recording, featuring the works of Ferruccio Busoni, received great reviews. Yet in 1988 you chose to withdraw from performing. Why?
I found myself gravitating more and more to playing music by living composers, and at a certain point wondered “why aren’t I writing my own music instead of playing all my friends’ music?”
Through psychoanalysis I came to the realization that my deepest desire was to be a composer rather than an interpreter. At the time, my sense was that I couldn’t do both and that I needed to choose, and I chose composition.
When you returned to the concert stage after a 19 year hiatus, you did so playing your own music. How different was the performing experience when sharing your own compositions rather than pieces written by others?
It was a totally different experience. . . the emphasis is so different. It’s actually your own music! Conversations were more about the piece than about how it was played. I did get a lot of “I had no idea you could play like that!” reactions after the first concert (released as the CD “Many Worlds”), which was kind of fun.
One of the things that most impresses me about your work is how multidisciplinary it is. When did you first begin to collaborate with non-musical art forms, what prompted you to do so, and how do you think music can be enriched through these sorts of collaboration?
I discovered at a young age that sometimes when I look at a painting I start to hear music in my mind. I can’t explain this and I don’t know what it’s called. I don’t think it’s “synesthesia.” I often compose in response to paintings. When I walk through a museum, listening to the paintings is a big part of the experience for me.
Working with choreographer Ann Reinking was such a joy for me. Annie would call me with an idea and would lead me through the dramatic arc of it, the mood shifts, arrival points. We’d have these very exciting phone conversations and then we’d get off the phone and I would compose a first draft right away. I’d quickly record a piano sketch for her and send it right off and we’d go back and forth on it. She was an ideal collaborator. What fun we had!
As a composer I am always on the lookout for inspiration, for something that might trigger a musical dream.
Seeing the Jane Campion film “Bright Star” about John Keats, I was struck by the beauty of the poetry being read aloud in the film. The next day I pulled a book of Keats poems off the bookshelf and started reading. After a few minutes, I noticed that feeling I sometimes get, an opening, a hint, the sense that my mind might make the shift into dreaming music. I put down the book and started sketching. I made a quick sketch and did this again the next day and the next day and this went on for over 40 days, reading until a line or phrase triggered a musical response. I wish I had kept it going for more days!
I think that there are a lot of people who would like to “know more” about classical music, to find a way in to a deep immersive listening experience, but they just don’t know how. This is what got me involved in the Reflections concerts. At the start of the pandemic, I became artistic director of a non-profit called Reflections in Music whose mission is to bring in new audiences of all ages and backgrounds to classical music. Reflections present programs that are intended to spark new ways of engaging with the classical musical experience, and often this involves art work from one discipline responding to work from another artistic discipline. We’ve had great response to these programs (you can learn more about them by visiting www.reflectionsinmusic.org)
Congratulations on the recent release of your beautiful new piano solo album, Memento. Most of the pieces have an improvisational feel, and you’ve stated that this “gives the music a conversational feeling that sometimes approaches that of a confessional.” Can you tell me more about this?
Thank you for your kind words about Memento. It wasn’t actually me who said that about the conversational feeling, it was the person who wrote the liner notes for the record company. I was puzzled at first by that line, to be honest. I think it has something to do with narrative, melody as narrative. Also, the “voice” speaking when I compose is me personally, and not a persona adopted for the sake of story-telling. I think maybe that’s what he’s saying.
Two of my favorite tracks on Memento are “Improvisation on a Ground by Henry Purcell” and “Dido’s Blues.” Both are based on compositions by Purcell. What draws you to his music and why do you feel it sparked such creative improvisations?
When I was a kid we used to jam on bass lines from Led Zeppelin, Cream, Jimi Hendrix songs and others. I remember reading about how back in Beethoven’s time they used to improvise on Ground Bass lines, and I realized it was sort of the same thing and thought it might be fun to try it on some classical lines, so I set out in search of them. I found a rich vein of material in Elizabethan and early Baroque music, not just Purcell. Monteverdi has some great ones! I spent a few months collecting lines and jamming on them, and a couple of them evolved into compositions, including the two inspired by Purcell that are on this record.
You’ve written that you’ve been inspired by paintings ever since you were a young boy, and that certain paintings cause you to hear music in your mind. “Night Paintings”, inspired by paintings by Margaret Garrett, Vincent van Gogh, Eduard Munch, and David Salle are beautiful examples of this. Can you tell me what drew you to these specific paintings and why they spoke to you so strongly?
I wanted to write some “nocturnes,” and I was in a phase of composing in response to paintings. I thought it might be interesting to use paintings that were evocative of the night in some way as my point of departure.
Each of these four paintings generated a different experience for me. The creepiness of the scenario in David Salle’s “I’ve Got It All Up Here,” the strange faces of the townspeople in Munch’s “Evening on Karl Johann Street,” the beautifully evocative mood of van Gogh’s “Nuit Etoilee sur la Rhone” with its deep blues and swirling patterns of light, and Margaret Garrett’s “Nocturnal,” with its layers of deep blue with gestural light on top that somehow elicited full-on romanticism in my musical response.
You’ve also said that you believe in “the primacy of lyricism and melody” and that you’ve lived long enough now to not be ashamed to open your heart and unleash “a beautiful, simply-stated tune.” How do you feel that age and time have allowed you to create in this way?
I think there is a lot of pressure to conform to whatever styles are currently in vogue, and for emerging artists who are trying to have a career in the arts there’s a lot of glancing sideways to see what other people are doing.
Melody and lyricism are out of fashion and have been out of fashion for a long time, in classical music as well as in popular music.
At this point in my life, I am comfortable with myself and I don’t really care if what I do is fashionable or not. I want to write music that is meaningful to me personally. In recent years this has often meant writing works with a long melodic through-line.
I’m extremely fond of your masterful use of space and silence, most notably in “Siempre.” How, as a composer and pianist, do you so successfully keep these sonic “white spaces” so alive and vibrant?
Thank you. This is something that I would like to explore more in my writing. It’s so easy to forget that silence is a part of the musician’s tool kit.
As a composer I just trust that the silence is part of the storytelling. As a pianist, I sometimes have to bring my hands close to the keys during a silence to show the audience that it’s not over yet, otherwise they might start clapping!
With each of these pieces I feel I’m being given a window into a moment or experience in your life. There’s vulnerability, balance, and elegance to this music. Given that you can play and compose at such a high level, how did you develop the restraint to edit your musical choices so well?
Thank you. This is very high praise, and it means a lot to me.
I’m not trying to impress anybody when I compose, I’m just trying to capture an honest feeling.
Will there be sheet music available for the music featured on Memento? If so, where might we purchase it?
Yes, the music is available through Subito Music Corp, who distribute my music. Here is a volume with the first 9 pieces from the album, and here are the Night Paintings. I am told that the first 9 pieces will also be available soon by digital download.
What advice can you offer to young musicians who wish to create a multi-style approach to their careers?
I don’t know if I can answer that with regard to the career aspect of it, but musically I would say to follow your instincts and do what you love. Listen to the music that you love. Study the music that you love. Don’t be embarrassed by what you love. Take your love seriously.
BRUCE WOLOSOFF is a pianist and internationally performed composer of solo, chamber, and orchestral music. Lauded as “an authentic American voice” by critic Thomas Bohlert for his integration of classical, jazz, blues, and contemporary influences, Wolosoff often composes in response to visual art and through collaborations with leading artists across a variety of disciplines.
Recent projects include the recording “Paradise Found: Cello Music of Bruce Wolosoff” featuring performances by Mr. Wolosoff with cellist Sara Sant’Ambrogio of the Eroica Trio, which was released internationally by Avie Records in April 2022 and debuted at #6 on the Billboard Classical Chart.
Wolosoff's previous collaboration with Ms. Sant'Ambrogio, a recording of Wolosoff’s “Concerto for Cello and Orchestra” with conductor Grzegorz Nowak and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, was also a Billboard Top 10 best selling classical album. Critic Jerry Dubins of Fanfare Magazine described the concerto as one of “compelling beauty” that “can be declared an instant masterpiece.”
Other recent commissions include "Lacrymae” for cello choir for cellist Inbal Segev’s “20 for 2020” project; “The Astronomer’s Key" commissioned in honor of the Roswell Artists-in-Residence Program’s 50th anniversary; “The Loom,” inspired by watercolors by the composer's friend Eric Fischl and commissioned by the Eroica Trio, who premiered the work at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.
Wolosoff collaborated with the late choreographer Ann Reinking on two ballets. The White City, based on Erik Larsen’s The Devil in the White City and made in partnership with Melissa Thodos of Thodos Dance Chicago, enjoyed a two-season tour around the country and rave critical reviews: the Chicago Sun-Times named it “Best Dance of 2011.” A Light in the Dark, inspired by the lives of Helen Keller and Ann Sullivan, was nominated for an Emmy Award in Outstanding Achievement for Arts Programming. The Chicago Sun-Times described the production as “a feast for the senses,” Dance Magazine as “masterful,” and the Chicago Stage Standard as having “the hallmarks of an instant classic.”
Other interdisciplinary collaborations have included composing music for short films by the artist (and Wolosoff’s wife) Margaret Garrett, including "Elegy", made in response to the coronavirus pandemic, and the short dance film Cuneiform, which premiered at Houston’s Frame x Frame Film Fest in 2019. In a recurring project with the Pilobolus dance company and New York Academy of Art, Wolosoff improvises on the piano with dancers while they are drawn in real time.
As an outgrowth of these inter-disciplinary collaborations, Wolosoff was recently named Artistic Director of “Reflections in Music,” a non-profit organization that presents programs of music in conversation with other art forms.
Born in New York City in 1955, Wolosoff played in a variety of rock bands as a teenager while pursuing studies in classical piano performance. During his early career as a freelance classical pianist, Wolosoff’s debut recital earned a glowing review from then-New York Times music critic Tim Page, who wrote that “Mr. Wolosoff is an artist with ideas. He combines keen musical insight with a prismatic sense of tonal color.” Wolosoff gave the world premieres for a number of piano works, including compositions by Daron Hagen and Richard Danielpour; Wolosoff premiered the latter’s Piano Concerto No. 2 under the direction of JoAnn Falletta. He was Artistic Director and pianist in an 80th birthday tribute to Olivier Messiaen at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. Of his recording of Ferruccio Busoni’s piano music for Music and Arts Programs of America, Hannah Busoni, the composer’s daughter-in-law and head of the Busoni Society in the 1980s, wrote, “All those who love Busoni’s work owe it to themselves to hear Bruce Wolosoff’s compelling and beautiful interpretations. They are exemplary.”
Wolosoff began receiving wider acclaim as a composer with the release of “Songs Without Words” on Naxos American Classics, a collection of 18 divertimenti performed by the Carpe Diem String Quartet. Additional commissions have come from ETHEL, the Lark Quartet, the Minnesota Ballet, recorder player Michala Petri, and the 21st Century Consort. In 2007 he led the Columbus Symphony in a performance of his “Sinfonia” as part of their Bach & Beyond Festival. Wolosoff’s chamber opera “Madimi,” with a libretto by the late Michael Hall, was premiered at Symphony Space in New York City by the Center for Contemporary Opera. Another opera, “The Great Good Thing,” with a libretto by Debbie Danielpour based on the young adult novel by Roderick Townley, was workshopped by operamission.
Wolosoff has maintained a private teaching studio since 1968. For eight years, he was a visiting artist at the Hayground School in Bridgehampton, New York, where he launched a creative orchestra of young composers, most of whom had no previous formal music training, in which students performed and conducted each other’s music.
Wolosoff earned a B.A. from Bard College, where he studied with Joan Tower and ran an improvisational group with multi-instrumentalist and composer Elliot Sharp, and an M.M. in Piano Performance from the New England Conservatory. He studied composition and orchestration with Lawrence Widdoes, and pursued post-graduate studies at the Dalcroze School of Music with Dr. Hilda Schuster. Wolosoff’s principal piano instructor was German Diez, who taught the technique of Claudio Arrau. Other teachers include Evelyne Crochet, Richard Goode, Jorge Bolet, Charlie Banacos, and Jaki Byard.
Bruce Wolosoff lives on Shelter Island with his wife, the artist Margaret Garrett.
To learn more about him, visit his website.