Click here to hear an interview with Madeline Bruser.
Biography
One of the leading piano teachers in New York City, Madeline Bruser has performed as soloist with the San Francisco and Denver Symphony Orchestras. She has conducted seminars and workshops at the Juilliard School, the Manhattan School of Music, the University of Southern California, the Music Academy of the West, the MedArt World Congress on Arts and Medicine, and college music departments and music teachers’ organizations throughout the United States and Canada. She also appeared on National Public Radio’s Performance Today in an interview and piano lesson broadcast in 200 cities.
Ms. Bruser is the author of the highly acclaimed book The Art of Practicing: A Guide to Making Music from the Heart, which combines musical, meditative, and physiological principles. Her book has sold 70,000 copies and was published in Korean in 2000 and in Chinese in 2005. It will be published in Italian in February. She has retrained pianists with practice-related injuries since 1985, both in private piano lessons and in workshop series. From 2001 to 2003 she served on the Committee for Pianists’ Wellness for the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy. She has presented at the Performing Arts Medicine Conference at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City, giving a demonstration piano lesson, and she contributed to a research study on pianists’ injuries at Mount Sinai Hospital. Her research on the physiological mechanics of piano playing has included interviews with leading arts medicine professionals specializing in physiatrics, physical therapy, and hand therapy, as well as with teachers of the Alexander Technique, Body-Mind Centering, and Laban Movement Analysis. In 2002 she founded Golden Key Music Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping musicians unlock their innate talent and fulfill their deepest artistic potential. From 2004 to 2010, she led a weeklong summer program in Vermont integrating principles of body mechanics, meditative listening, and mental relaxation.
Ms. Bruser won First Prize in the Denver Symphony North American Young Artists Competition and was a prizewinner in the First National Chopin Competition. She also received the Alfred Hertz Award for Music from the University of California in two consecutive years. She has appeared in recital at Carnegie Recital Hall and at the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C., and has performed on radio in the U.S. and Europe. She studied with Alexander Libermann, Menahem Pressler, Irwin Freundlich, John Crown, Jeanne Stark-Iochmans, and Paul Hersh. Ms. Bruser graduated from the Juilliard School in 1970 and received a Master of Music degree from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in 1978.
Ms. Bruser is the creator of Fearless Performing, a monthly e-zine for musicians who want to break through to a new level of performance. The e-zine features articles, videos, and information about people and events of interest to performers.
Ms. Bruser lives with her husband and daughter in New York City. She gives private piano lessons and workshops at her studio on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and she has served on the adjunct piano faculty of Teachers College, Columbia University. She is working on her second book, about developing freedom and confidence in performance.
Concert Reviews
“Combines an assured technical command with an innate sense of musical architecture. . .clean, propulsive performance.”
The New York Times
“Alive and evocative,”
Denver Post
“Uncommon evenness, tone, and lyric poise. . . soft, silken shading. . .a model of serenity.”
Washington Post
“Continuously daring and dazzling.”
San Francisco Examiner
“Something of a sensation. . .a paragon of composure and a bundle of keyboard brilliance. Her playing was beautifully contoured and flawlessly assembled. . .unabashed virtuosity.”
Oakland Tribune