Exploring the Roots of David Bruce

Composer David Bruce shares insights about his new work, Groanbox, featuring Michael Ward-Bergeman on accordion, The Groanbox Boys, and the Metropolis Ensemble:

As a composer whose music has long incorporated folk elements, it has been an incredibly exciting challenge to write a piece for these two groups of outstanding musicians. I titled my piece simply Groanbox, (itself an old American term for the accordion), and wrote a piece which is not at all like a traditional 'concerto', but rather a piece in which the two groups merge as one, along with the two styles of music. I suppose it's a sort of imaginary folk-music I'm writing, played by the largest and most virtuoso village band you've ever seen. Read more...

This past year, David introduced A Bird In Your Ear, a new opera based on an old Russian folk tale originally published in 1903 called "The Language of the Birds," which received its world premiere in March 2008. In this scene below, a Bird with Golden Plumage (soprano Yulia Van Doren) arrives to thank Ivan (tenor Sungeun Lee) for saving her children. She offers to grant him a wish, and so he asks to understand the language of the birds.



You can watch more from this performance of A Bird in Your Ear by Bard College Orchestra and Choir conducted by James Bagwell, and learn more about the work. The opera will also be presented at the NYC Opera VOX Festival on May 1-2, 2009.

Looking for more from David Bruce? Carnegie Hall is featuring his commissioned work Piosenki, which is available as a free download. The work reflects on snapshots of childhood found in the poems of the Polish poet Julian Tuwim, and features a lagerphone similar to the Freedom Boot used by The Groanbox Boys in their upcoming concert with Metropolis Ensemble on January 28, 2009.