Brian Buch

Position
Assistant Professor
Affiliated Departments
Telephone
617-747-8119

For media inquiries, please contact Media Relations

Pianist and composer Brian Buch received his Bachelor of Music degree in music composition with an emphasis in piano performance from Indiana University and a Doctorate of Musical Arts in composition from Boston University. His primary teachers have been Alla Cohen, Sam Headrick, Richard Cornell, and Sven-David Sandstrom. Buch is on the faculty at Berklee, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and New England Conservatory, and gives private instruction in composition, classical and jazz piano, and theory and ear training.

As a composer, Buch writes for all genres of classical and jazz music. As a pianist, he is constantly in demand and frequently performs classical, jazz, and rock throughout the country. His music has been performed in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Russia, Estonia, Bosnia, and Serbia; broadcast on NPR, the Russian Television Network, WGBH, WHRB (Harvard), and Italy’s Taukay radio; and released on record labels Centaur, Marquis Classics, MSR Classics, and Ablaze Records. Buch has released four albums of original music: Shifting Spheres, From the River Flow the Stars, Poems to Sing at Night, and Stone of Traveling Winds.

Career Highlights
  • Performances with the Talea Ensemble, Daedalus Quartet, JACK Quartet, RUSQuartet, Yevgeny Kutik, and Estonian National Symphony, and with members of the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, and New York Ballet
  • Recordings include Shifting Spheres, an album of chamber orchestra works (Centaur Records); From the River Flow the Stars, an album of string quartets (MSR Classics); Poems to Sing at Night, an album of solo piano works; and Stone of Traveling Winds, an album of chamber works
  • Arrangement of "Oyfn Pripetshik" for Yevgeny Kutik's Music from the Suitcase (Marquis Classics)
Awards
  • Winner, MTNA National Level Composition Competition (2007)
  • Finalist, Queen Elisabeth Composition Competition (2007)
  • Finalist, Fourth International Haifa Composers Competition 
  • Finalist, II Lepo Sumera Composition Competition 
Education
  • D.M.A., Boston University, composition
  • B.M.A., Indiana University, composition and piano
In Their Own Words

"I want my students to understand our course material in a way that allows them to utilize the material in their own voice. I love seeing my students apply a topic to their own creative output, which in turn expands upon our lesson plan and broadens their musical vocabulary."

"My background is very diverse. I have been playing and composing classical, jazz, and rock music my whole life, and have performed with all different types of groups of many musical genres. In my teaching and playing, I find it helpful to be able to talk about these cross relations. Relating new and foreign topics to my students through a familiar genre of music is very helpful in connecting with my class in our lessons."