On November 27th, 2003, Music Around Us featured Jessica Bruser on piano.

A Sudden Whim: Keyboard Fantasies, the Fantastic and the Whimsical

Fryderyk Chopin
Fantasie Impromptu in C sharp minor, Op. 66
(1810-1849)

Johann Sebastian Bach
Capriccio on the Departure of a Beloved
(1811-1886)
Brother, BWV 992

Alexander Scriabin
Piano Sonata No. 2, in G sharp minor, Op. 19 (Fantasy-Sonata)
(1872-1915)

1. Andante
   
2. Presto

Fryderyk Chopin
Fantasie in F minor, Op. 49
(1810-1849)

Born in Toronto, Jessica Bruser is currently a DMA candidate at the Manhattan School of Music. She received her BA from Yale University and her MM from the Yale School of Music.

Jessica has been performing as a soloist, chamber musician and harpsichordist in recitals and festivals around the world for the past several years. After winning the Manhattan School of Music concerto competition, and the subsequent performance as soloist with the Manhattan School of Music Orchestra with Gunther Schuller conducting, The New York Times described the Lutoslawski Piano Concerto as a highlight of the concert in which " the soloist, Jessica Bruser" gave "an authoritative performance [and] played with a strong, sure sound." New York's daily Polish paper Novy Dziennik described Jessica's repertoire choice as "astonishing" and commended Jessica's "absolutely authoritative interpretation, showing both power and delicacy with admirable command of the keyboard." Jessica's solo recitals in Toronto have included the St. Lawrence Centre, Glenn Gould Studio, and four noon-hour recitals at Roy Thomson Hall on Glenn Gould's former piano. Other solo performances have been in Minneapolis; Alkmaar, Holland; Omiya, Japan; a 10-city recital tour of Canada; a radio recital on WQXR in New York; and performances in Paris and Spain under the auspices of the New York Foundation for the Arts. She returned to the Canary Islands this summer to play the Lutoslawski concerto with the Tenerife Orchestra. Other orchestral appearances include the premier of Steven Burke's piece for piano and orchestra, Microgroove, with the Yale Chamber Symphony conducted by the late Jacob Druckman.

Upcoming concerts include a recital at Carnegie's Weill Recital Hall in the spring of 2004 as well as another performance of the Lutoslawski concerto in the Canary Islands this summer. Jessica is a passionate advocate of new music and has played in the New Music New Haven series and in the series New Voices in Princeton, NJ. She also worked intensively in a contemporary piano quartet while at Yale which won three national competitions in the spring of 1997. One of the prizes the group won was a concert tour of the Midwest. Most recently, Jessica played an all-Brahms chamber music recital at Merkin Concert Hall in Manhattan.

Jessica won the gold medal for receiving the highest mark in Canada on her Licentiate of Music of the Western Board of Music (L.M.M.) in 1992 and has also been awarded silver medals in both piano and cello from the Royal Conservatory of Music. She has been featured on Global News and City Pulse News in Toronto. She has performed as both a soloist and chamber musician at the Banff, Tanglewood Young Artist, Aspen, Utah, Oberlin, Norfolk, and Holland music festivals. Last summer, a performance in Lausanne, Switzerland with violinist Janet Sung was recorded by La Radio Suisse, and in August, Jessica traveled to Briosco, Italy at Boris Berman's invitation for his festival at the historic Villa Medici where she performed on period fortepianos.

As a harpsichordist, Jessica Bruser has performed chamber music with period instruments (Blanchet harpsichord circa 1735) at Yale and at the Yale Centre for British Art. Her graduating harpsichord recital at Yale was a performance of Bach's Goldberg Variations.