The SummerMusic Festival is the perfect way for students, faculty, and music-lovers alike to reminisce on the closing days of summer. Sponsored by the Drake University Department of Music, the concert features Des Moines native and pianist Bruce Brubaker, along with several other Iowa chamber musicians and student performers.
SummerMusic will be held at the Patty and Fred Turner Jazz Center on Sept. 14 at 7:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
This year’s festival will feature music by American composers Philip Glass, John Cage, and Arthur Krieger. Participating musicians will include Brubaker; Nicholas Roth, associate professor of piano at Drake; Des Moines Symphony concertmaster and violinist Jonathan Sturm; and clarinetist Gregory Oakes, assistant professor of clarinet at Iowa State University. Students from Drake and Iowa State University will also perform.
Bruce Brubaker has appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and has performed at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival. Glass Cage, the first CD in Brubaker’s series of recordings for Arabesque Records, was named a New Yorker magazine Best Recording of the Year. A longtime faculty member of New York’s Juilliard School, Brubaker is now chair of the piano department at Boston’s New England Conservatory.
“We are so pleased that Bruce Brubaker will once again share his musical gifts with the Des Moines community through the annual SummerMusic festival,” Roth says. “This year, Brubaker’s performances will involve collaboration with Drake music students, providing memorable and meaningful experiences.”
Started by Brubaker in 1994, the SummerMusic festival has helped bring the American renaissance in chamber music performance to Iowa. The concert series has featured collaborations between nationally acclaimed chamber musicians and outstanding Iowa performers.
For more information on the SummerMusic Festival, contact Marilyn Dean at 515-271-2018 or marilyn.dean@drake.edu.