Stephen Drury

Stephen Drury

Pianist Stephen Drury has concertized throughout the world with a repertoire that stretches from Bach to Liszt to the music of today. His performances of the piano sonatas of Charles Ives to works by John Cage and Gyorgy Ligeti have received the highest critical acclaim. At Spoleto USA and at the Angelica Festival in Bologna he performed as both conductor and pianist. He has also conducted the Britten Sinfonia in England, the Santa Cruz New Music Works Ensemble, and the Harvard Group for New Music. In 1988-89 he organized a year-long festival of the music of John Cage which led to a request from the composer to perform the solo piano part in Cage’s 101, premiered with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in April, 1989. Drury has commissioned new works for solo piano from Cage, John Zorn, Terry Riley, Lee Hyla and Chinary Ung with funding provided by Meet The Composer. In March of 1995 he gave the first performance of Zorn’s concerto for piano and orchestra Aporias with Dennis Russell Davies and the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra.

He has performed throughout the United States, Latin America, Europe and Asia, taking the sound of dissonance into remote corners of Pakistan, Greenland and Montana, and tours frequently with the John Zorn Ensemble. In 1999 he was invited by choreographer Merce Cunningham to perform onstage with Cunningham and Mikhail Barishnikov as part of the Lincoln Center Festival. Drury is artistic director of the Callithumpian Consort, and he created and directs the Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice at New England Conservatory, where he presently teaches. He has recorded for Mode, New Albion, Catalyst, Tzadik, MusicMasters and Neuma.