kyle bruckmann's biography

Oboist and electronic musician Kyle Bruckmann has recently relocated to San Francisco from Chicago, where since 1996 he had been a fixture in the thriving local experimental music underground. While teaching and free-lancing extensively as a classical musician, he collaborated regularly with many of the city's most creative improvisers and sound artists, including Jim Baker, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Jeb Bishop, Michael Zerang, Guillermo Gregorio, Scott Rosenberg, Bob Marsh, and Olivia Block. National and European tours have brought him into contact with the likes of Polwechsel, Bhob Rainey, Greg Kelley, Guiseppe Ielasi, Boris Hauf, Larry Marotta, Matt Ingalls, Ernesto Diaz-Infante, Karen Stackpole, Dan Plonsey, and John Shiurba.

Ongoing affiliations include EKG, an electroacoustic duo with Ernst Karel, and the experimental punk monstrosity Lozenge. His quintet Wrack, which performs compositions drawing equally from the traditions of contemporary jazz and the classical avant-garde, recently released an album on Montreal’s Red Toucan label with the help of a grant from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. As a member of Gene Coleman's Ensemble Noamnesia, he has performed works by George Crumb, John Cage, Charles Ives, Salvatore Sciarrino, Otomo Yoshihide, Werner Dafeldecker, Cornelius Cardew, and Malcolm Goldstein, among others.

His debut CD of solo improvisations, entymology, available through Barely Auditable Records, has been hailed as "an enchanting experience that expands the possibilities (and the comprehension) of the double reed family" (François Couture, All-Music Guide). He has also recorded for Hat Art, Musica Genera, Sedimental, ToYo, Sickroom, Farrago, and Locust Music.

Bruckmann earned undergraduate degrees in music and psychology at Rice University in Houston, studying oboe with Robert Atherholt, serving as music director of campus radio station KTRU, and achieving academic distinction as a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He completed his Masters degree in 1996 at the University of Michigan, where he studied oboe performance with Harry Sargous and contemporary improvisation with Ed Sarath. He has attended the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival in Maine, the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York, and the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara.

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