Featured Artists of the
Chamber Music Society
of Fort Worth

Shields-Collins "Buddy" Bray
Piano

SHIELDS-COLLINS "BUDDY" BRAY has been Principal Keyboardist of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra since 1986, and has hosted the orchestra's pre-concert discussion series since 1993. He has often appeared as piano soloist with the Orchestra, most recently in works by Janacek and Britten. Buddy has also appeared as soloist with the Dallas and Jacksonville symphony orchestras, the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Kennedy Center Opera Orchestra, and in Miguel Harth-Bedoya's The Passion of Tango, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl.

Buddy's career spans other venues, as well: he was artistic director of Dallas' new-music ensemble Voices of Change from 2003-2006, and maintains his commitment to new music as artistic director of Cliburn at the Modern in Fort Worth. He has brought such composers as Ned Rorem, John Corigliano, David Del Tredici, and Ricky Ian Gordon to Fort Worth; in 2006-07, he will present concerts of music by William Bolcom and Thomas Pasatieri.

Buddy and music educator John Feierabend are the creators of the Van Cliburn Foundation's Musical Awakeningsz* programs. Conceived for third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade students, these varied and highly interactive programs will be performed 120 times in area schools in 2006-07, with Buddy acting as narrator, host and sometimes pianist as well. Additionally, Buddy has helped to establish piano-lessons programs in two Fort Worth elementary schools, under the auspices of Cliburn Musical Awakenings.

He was born in Mississippi in 1963, and grew up in northeastern Louisiana. He studied piano there with Donald Cornell, and later with Steven De Groote in Fort Worth.

For more information, simply email us at info@chambermusicsocietyoffortworth.com.