BRIAN CONNELLY
Artist Teacher of Piano

B. Mus. (1980), M.Mus. (1983) University of Michigan. 1109 Alice Pratt Brown Hall 713-348-2166 milkbone@rice.edu

Pianist BRIAN CONNELLY ’s performances span an unusually broad range of historical and modern repertoires.  Born in Detroit, he attended the University of Michigan, where he studied with pianists Gyorgy Sandor and Theodore Lettvin.  Mr. Connelly has premiered works by a host of contemporary composers such as William Albright, Karim Al-Zand, Derek Bermel, William Bolcom, Paul Cooper, David Diamond, Ross Lee Finney, and many others. He is a frequent guest with new-music groups such as the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble and the Chicago Contemporary Players, and he was recently featured in the Carnegie Hall series Making Music in a tribute to composer William Bolcom.

Known for his affinity for the works of Olivier Messiaen, Connelly’s performances this season include Messiaen’s Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus and Catalogue d’Oiseaux for piano, the complete songs cycles with soprano Carmen Pelton and mezzo-soprano Susanne Mentzer, all of the chamber music, the Oiseaux exotiques with chamber orchestra, and the Trois petites liturgies de la Présence Divine with conductor Donald Runnicles at the Grand Teton Music Festival.

Mr. Connelly is also widely respected as a scholar and performer of historical instruments, appearing in the U.S. and Europe on 18th- and 19th-century pianos by Walther, Rosenberger, Graf, Pleyel, Bösendorfer, and Streicher.  He has for 13 years been a member of the renowned ensemble Context; his recent recordings with that group—of music by Robert Schumann and Prince Louis Ferdinand—has received exuberant praise. 

Mr. Connelly has appeared with many of today’s most respected instrumentalists, such as violinist Sergiu Luca, cellists Roel Dieltiens, Gary Hoffman, and Lynn Harrell, flutist Carol Wincenc, clarinetist Charles Neidich, and pianists Ian Hobson and Andre-Michel Schub, and he has shared ragtime recitals with jazz pianist Marcus Roberts.  He teaches piano performance and chamber music.