Biography
Margaret Bruce
Classical concert pianist. Born in Canada, at home on the stages of Britain and Europe.
At the piano, Walshaw Lodge
Margaret Bruce is Canadian. She grew up in Vancouver and was educated at Bishop Strachan School and the Toronto Conservatory of Music before leaving Canada for London when she was eighteen.
After studying at the Royal College of Music she won a scholarship for further study in Vienna, and studied Dvořák at the House of Artists in Prague. Returning from Vienna, she completed her studies with the Czech concert pianist Lisa Fuchsova and the German-born conductor Peter Gellhorn.
A repertoire written for her
There are any number of pianists who have had the occasional work composed for them. Margaret Bruce, on the other hand, has had what amounts to an entire repertoire of new music written specially for her, by composers as celebrated as Herbert Howells and Sir Lennox Berkeley.
Not that she has restricted herself to new music. She has played Mozart and Chopin at the Barbican with the Royal Philharmonic, performed Liszt in Slovakia and Bermuda, and given recitals and broadcasts throughout North America and Europe.
Antonín Tučapský
Of all the composers who have written for her, the Czech composer Antonín Tučapský has particular pride of place. In the 1980s she premiered his Fantasia quasi una sonata at the Purcell Room. There followed a piano concerto, a piano trio and 24 Piano Preludes. He also wrote a miniature piano trio for her triplet sons when they were five years old.
Today Margaret performs regularly with friends and colleagues, including the much-loved summer and Christmas concerts at Walshaw Lodge near Hebden Bridge.
“Life is like a piano. What you get out of it depends on how you play it.”