‘Hania Rani & Dobrawa Czocher - Max Cooper & Bruce Brubaker "Glassforms"’

The first musical evening of Nuits Sonores & European Lab Brussels highlights a minimalist and electroacoustic approach to the piano. Drawing their inspiration from the work of modern or minimalist composers such as John Cage and Philip Glass, the artists will take you on a journey into your own imagination, through haunting repetitions and cinematic atmospheres.​​​​​​​

In 2020, London-based electronica producer Max Cooper and American artist and pianist Bruce Brubaker released together an album called Glassforms. Starting from the music of Philip Glass, the duo recorded several pieces by the minimalist composer at the Philharmonie de Paris, alternating with a series of preludes. In Glassforms, Cooper generates digital sound material from Brubaker’s piano performance, creating an organic new experimental work, half-acoustic and half-synthetic.​​​​​​​

Taught at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw, pianist Hania Rani and cellist Dobrawa Czocher both followed the neo-classical paths already travelled by the Germans Max Richter, Nils Frahm and Hauschka, among others. The two musicians use a classical instrumentarium and repetitions of motivic cells to create a delicately enchanting universe. Using impressionistic modes, atmospheric pedals and exquisite melodies, Hania Rani and Dobrawa Czocher conjure an aesthetic world that has already impressed the leading German classical music label Deutsche Grammophon, with which they have just signed.