Biography
Blues and jazz threads run through the concert works of pianist-composer Bruce Wolosoff, who regularly teams with visual artists and choreographers; several of his recordings have landed on classical best-seller lists. Born Bruce Germont in New York on March 27, 1955, he received his stepfather’s surname after his mother’s remarriage following his father’s death. As a teenager he performed in rock groups while continuing classical piano study, then entered Bard College in New York state, where he studied composition with Joan Tower and took part in avant-garde improvisation. He later earned a master’s degree in piano performance at the New England Conservatory of Music under jazz pianist-composer Jaki Byard; additional mentors included pianist German Diez, composer Lawrence Widdoes, and dance educator Hilda Schuster at New York’s Dalcroze School of Music. During the 1980s Wolosoff worked as a freelance pianist in New York, receiving favorable notices, and gave the world premiere of Richard Danielpour’s Piano Concerto No. 2. In 1986 he released a Ferruccio Busoni recital on the Music and Arts Programs of America label, and two years later he mounted an eightieth-birthday tribute to Olivier Messiaen. Shortly afterward he stepped away from concert appearances to concentrate exclusively on composition. Commissions soon arrived from recorder player Michala Petri, the Lark Quartet, and the Greenwich Village Orchestra. Retaining his jazz and blues interests, Wolosoff began folding those idioms into his concert music after 2000, beginning with the clarinet trio Blues for the New Millennium (2001). The piece debuted at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., and further performances followed from the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, the Carpe Diem String Quartet, and the Eroica Trio—the last of which commissioned The Loom, a score inspired by Eric Fischl’s watercolors. In the 2010s and 2020s Wolosoff produced additional pieces that interact with visual art and collaborated with the late choreographer Ann Reinking on three ballets. Although most of his output remains scored for piano or chamber forces, he has also composed two operas. Around 2010 he resumed performing, frequently presenting his own music; the live album Many Worlds appeared in 2011. A 2019 recording of his Cello Concerto by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra reached the top ten of Billboard’s classical chart, and in 2023 he issued the Avie-label album Memento, devoted to his solo piano works.
Albums
