Brian Ciach

Brian Ciach (pronounced “SIGH-ack“, born 1977) is a composer and pianist from Philadelphia. His music is evocative and attractive in its imagery, often using intrepid instrumentation and imaginative formal concepts woven from a free and accessible tonal language. Dr. Ciach has written a Vegetable Requiem (2012) for hand-made vegetable ocarinas, a Second Piano Sonata (2007) that runs out of notes, and Road Trip (2010) for soprano and chamber orchestra, presenting original poetry set in two ways, as if written by two different composers. Collective Uncommon: Seven Orchestral Studies on Medical Oddities (2012), his Indiana University dissertation inspired by curiosities found in the Mütter museum, received this review after a performance by the Minnesota Orchestra: "Ciach was the composer most intent upon letting his imagination run wild all over the music (hence the cabbages and dolls), but he also had the strongest sense of how to create layers of sounds..." (Hubbard, St. Paul Pioneer Press).   Brian's music has been performed across Europe and the United States. Recent premieres of commissioned works include Rorate Caeli(2013) for SATB a cappella chorus, performed in Vienna by Chorus Delicti Wien (Vivian Ip, director) and Kentucky Folk Pieces(2013) for flute and piano performed in St. Martin-in-the-Fields Church in London and the National Concert Hall in Dublin by Linda Chatterton, flute, and Matthew McCright, piano. Chaconne for amplified cello and electronic music (2008) was performed by Roger Lebow at the 2014 Ussachevsky Memorial Festival of Electroacoustic Music at Pomona College in Claremont, California. In 2012, Brian was a participant in the Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute, which led to that orchestra's performance of Collective Uncommon: Seven Orchestral Studies on Medical Oddities. Aaron Jay Kernis, Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute Founder and former Artistic Director, has said: “Brian Ciach’s Collective Uncommon was one of the hits of this year’s Future Classics concert with the Minnesota Orchestra. I hear it as a 21st-century take on Sweeney Todd’s Pictures at an Exhibition. Brian’s music is quirky, wry and possessed with both good humor and a gleeful objectivity about the absurd. His work is beautifully scored, always clear and full of arresting sounds and images, held together by intuitive dramatic plans that draw the listener in.” Brian was a participant in the 2012 Mizzou New Music Summer Festival, where Alarm Will Sound premiered The Einstein Slide(2012, an addendum to Collective Uncommon), a piece inspired by a medical slide of Albert Einstein's brain recently acquired by the Mütter Museum. Brian's Second Piano Sonata has received both national and international recognition, winning the 2008 National Federation of Music Clubs Emil and Ruth Beyer Composition Award and the 2011 American Liszt Society’s Bicentennial Composition Competition, leading to a performance of this sonata by Murray State Colleague, Matthew Gianforte, at the American Liszt Society's Bicentennial Conference. Also a composer of electronic music, his work Waterclocks was selected for a performance at the 2009 SEAMUS (Society for Electroacoustic Music in the United States) National Conference. Brian was the 2012 Subito Music Corporation Inaugural Composer Fellow, which involved practical and valuable composer training with a music publishing company.   Dedicated to new music, Brian has performed as pianist in various concert halls in the US, including Carnegie Hall. He has performed and recorded all of his works for piano, premiered Bells for piano and iPod at Temple University by Paul Geissinger, premiered a piano trio by Maurice Wright, and recorded a CD of new chamber works by Emiliano Pardo-Tristán. He recently recorded his Third Sonata (2012), premiered in a faculty lecture-recital at Murray State University. Dr. Ciach's Master's Piano Recital at Temple University included a from-memory performance of J.S. Bach's Fifth Partita in G Major, Schoenberg's Suite for Piano, Op. 25, and Richard Wernick's Piano Sonata No. 1, which received the following review: "The composer, who was present and who received a warm ovation at the end of the performance, was astonished to see Ciach come on stage to play his piece without any sign of a score in evidence–"Surely he’s not going to play it from memory!", he exclaimed. That, however, is exactly what Ciach did–triumphantly, for though I have heard the sonata played superbly both by Lambert Orkis (another Temple faculty member), for whom it and Wernick’s recent Second Sonata were written, and by the Australian-born Geoffrey Douglas Madge, I found Ciach’s realization fully worthy to stand on equal terms with those two eminent pianists’ readings" (Jacobson, S&H International).   Ciach most recently released his Third Sonata Album on iTunes.    *****************************************************************************    Official Website of composer and pianist, Brian Ciach   Brian Ciach - Composer, pianist, chef, blogger   Brian Ciach Music on Facebook   Brian Ciach on SoundCloud   Brian Ciach on YouTube   Download scores by Brian Ciach on Issuu   Download scores by Brian Ciach on Score Exchange   Brian Ciach on LinkedIn     Brian Ciach on Twitter   Brian Ciach on Composers Circle   Brian Ciach at Indiana University   Brian Ciach: IU Jacobs School of Music student co-winner of international competition   Brian Ciach: Jacobs student wins world competition   Brian Ciach: Third Sonata Album on iTunes   Brian Ciach wins the Indiana University Dean's Prize in Music Composition   Brian Ciach is the Inaugural Subito Music Composer Fellow   Brian Ciach: Mizzou New Music Initiative News   Brian Ciach: Summer Festival Spotlight, Mizzou New Music Intiative News

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