Biography
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Born
October 1971 (age 52)
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Born In
Oakdale, Stanislaus County, California, United States
Tom Brier is an American ragtime pianist and composer.
The hallmark of Brier's piano-playing style is an aggressive left hand that attacks the lower half of the piano keyboard in staccato, machine-gun-like octave passages. He alternates these voicings with a variety of other sounds: walking bass ("boogie"), single-note figures, and widely-spaced chords – often both arpeggiated and unarpeggiated tenths.
Born in Oakdale, California in 1971, Tom Brier was exposed to ragtime in his earliest years when his parents purchased a player piano. He was all of four years old at the time.
Soon, he was picking out on the piano keyboard the ragtime tunes he'd heard off the piano rolls. His parents found him a music teacher when he was five, and very shortly, he was composing and notating his own piano pieces. By the age of 11, he had composed and written the scores to some two dozen rags.
His first "serious" ragtime piece was the "Pine Cone Rag" of 1982, when Brier was 11 years old. Three years later, he began attending gatherings of the Sacramento Ragtime Society. The 14-year-old prodigy amazed everyone within earshot with his articulate renderings of the ragtime classics, and with his own highly original piano compositions.
Tom Brier performed at his first West Coast Ragtime Festival in 1989. He has been a headliner every year since, astounding onlookers with his machine-like precision, sensitive interpretations of more lyrical pieces, and nearly flawless sight-reading technique.
While pursuing his ragtime "education," Brier has also achieved a college education. He attended the California State University at Turlock, obtaining his Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science in 1993.
Over the last few years, Brier has also begun to augment his collection of original pieces of ragtime sheet music, with a collection numbering over 1,000. And, since 1982, he has composed and printed complete, notated scores to over 100 original ragtime compositions. He has also collaborated with ragtime composers Eric Marchese, Neil Blaze, Gil Lieberknecht, and Kathi Backus.
Brier has also headlined at the annual ragtime festivals in Sutter Creek and Fullerton, Calif. He has been a regular performer at the "Ragtime Corner" sponsored by the Sacramento Ragtime Society each Memorial Day weekend at the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee. He has also appeared in Sedalia and Columbia, Missouri; Phoenix, Arizona; Indianapolis, Indiana; and Vienna, Virginia (Washington, D.C. area).
To date, Brier has released seven solo albums and collaboration album with Nan Bostick.
Rising Star (1994)
Generic (1997)
Pianola (2000)
Dualing at the McCoys (with Nan Bostick, 2002)
Skeletons (2003)
Rewind (2006)
Blue Sahara (2009)
Constellations (2012)
In 2016, Tom Brier was injured in a rear-end collision that left him severely brain damaged. The accident cost him his ability to write, walk, speak, and play piano. He currently resides with his parents in Oakdale, and is receiving ongoing support for his condition from UC Davis. Tom's family is hopeful that he will continue to improve and his friends hope that he may one day return to composition.
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