Alan Bern

Alan Bern is a composer, pianist, accordionist and musical director, with a special interest in teaching solo and group improvisation. Since 1992 he has been musical director of Brave Old World, an ensemble renowned internationally for pioneering New Jewish Music. In 1994-97 his activities in Jewish music included tours, two best-selling recordings and a Grammy-nominated film with Itzhak Perlman ("In the Fiddler’s House). Mr. Bern's most recent CD is "Accordance" (Winter & Winter), a duo recording with Guy Klucevsek featuring original music for accordion and piano.

Born in Bloomington, Indiana, Mr. Bern’s path has taken him through classical music, jazz and a wide variety of traditional and popular musics. A year spent at the Creative Music Studio (Woodstock, NY) in 1978 exposed him to new approaches in composition and improvisation being taught by Anthony Braxton, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, John Cage, Carla Bley and many others, and inspired his own further explorations in musical crossover.

Since 1987 Mr. Bern has been based in Berlin, Germany, where he composes and directs music for theater, dance and film projects. From 1994-97 he was Musical Director of the Bremen Municipal Theater, whose productions included the German premiere of Tony Kushner's "Angels in America," an original musical based on Winnie-the-Pooh, and a highly successful Threepenny Opera, currently running in its seventh season. Mr. Bern’s recent projects include the world premiere Yiddish production of the Threepenny Opera (Saidye Bronfman Theater, Montreal) a Mary Flagler Cary Trust commission for the Eliza Miller Dance Company, a commission for Brave Old World and I Musici de Montreal, and teaching workshops in Helsinki, Finland (Sibelius Academy), Weimar, Germany (European Summer Academy) and Rudolstadt, Germany (Folksommer). Mr. Bern holds an M.A. in Philosophy from Tufts University, and has been a lecturer at Tufts, the New England Conservatory, Indiana University, the University of Mainz, the Cincinnati Conservatory and many other educational institutions in North America and Europe.