Performance: Asian Music Festival 2025, Kawasaki, Japan
Japan Federation of Composers features Bruce Crossman’s Fragility and Sonorousness (pn) at Asian Music Festival 2025 in Kawasaki, Japan
Bruce Crossman’s music, Fragility and Sonorousness (piano) was given its Japanese premiere at the prestigious Asian Music Festival 2025 in Kawasaki, Tokyo, Japan. Pianist Masanobu Shinoda performed the work at Chamber Music Concert 1: Piano Plus in the beautiful MUZA Kawasaki complex, Assembly Room on February 4, 2025. This festival was organised by the Japan Federation of Composers, as part of the Asian Composers League; it is an amazingly vibrant festival, which includes composers drawn from all over the Asia-Pacific region (14 member countries), and they selected four composers from Australia this year.
In Resonate Magazine, Australian Music Centre, Andrián Pertout reviewed the performance as “a manifestation of artistry at the highest levels of compositional craft and creativity; a musical language distinctly stamped with the Crossman ‘intercultural’ label, and what I would refer to as exhibiting quasi-improvisational ‘jazz-but-not-jazz’ sensibilities that today succinctly define Crossman as a true ‘original’ of our times.”
Performance: The Australian Lullaby Project, Tempo Rubato, Melbourne
Vanessa Sharman – The Australian Lullaby Project, Tempo Rubato, Brunswick, Melbourne
Vanessa Sharman (pianist) premières Bruce Crossman’s Entangled Stillness on 8 February 2025 at Vanessa Sharman – The Australian Lullaby Project, Tempo Rubato, Brunswick, Melbourne, Australia.
Broadcast: Kawai Live Sessions, 3MBS Radio, Melbourne
Vanessa Sharman (pianist) on Kawai Live Sessions, 3MBS Radio, Melbourne, Australia
Vanessa Sharman (pianist) performs in a live broadcast on Entangled Stillness on 26 March 2025 at Kawai Live Sessions, 3MBS Radio, Melbourne, Australia.
Recording: 3MBS Recording Studio, Melbourne
Raymond Shon (pianist) on 5 August 2025 to record Bruce Crossman’s Cicada Swells (in O ch’ae chul kut) (solo piano) at 3MBS Recording Studio, Melbourne, Australia.
Performances: Visual-Music Energies, Utzon Room, Sydney Opera House, Australia
Chuqiao Zhao (guzheng), Kate Fagan (reciter) and Joshua Hill (percussionist) perform Fire-Huǒ-Afi (guzheng, percussion) with film by Vincent Tay on 6 September 2026 at Visual-Music Energies, Utzon Room, Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia (photos: Mikayla Robertson, 2025; Cheolyu Kim, ‘Journey to nowhere #60’ (24 x 55 inches each x 6; pen on birchwood panel) (2018); Tito Siania Stowers, Vincent Tay’s Fire-huǒ-afi (film) (2025).
Ying Liu(erhu) performs Bloom Late When Spring has gone… (solo erhu), 6 September 2026 at Visual-Music Energies, Utzon Room, Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia (Ying Liu (erhu), photo: Mikayla Robertson; Richard Wu, ‘Dragonfly touching water,’ (1.5m x 1.3m, Chinese ink and spray paint on canvas, photo: Richard Wu).
Performance: Seoul Donhwamun Traditional Theater, South Korea
Choi Eunji (haegeum) premieres Bruce Crossman’s Mahk Intensity and Orange Vibrancy (solo haegeum) (2022) at Seoul Haegeum Ensemble: A Night of Premieres for Haegeum Solo, Seoul Donhwamun Traditional Theater, South Korea, 21 September 2025.
Korean contemporary Gugak music critic, Yoon Jung-kang commented about the piece:
“The title’s “Mahk” (막), borrowed from architect Cho Byoung-soo, refers to things unrefined or ordinary—like makgeolli or makguksu. Yet within such “roughness” lies sincerity and immediacy, qualities deeply Korean. What was striking was how Crossman grasped this concept both intellectually and emotionally. In “mahk,” he found improvisation, spontaneity, and the “uncontrived virtuosity” that underpins sanjo.”
“Crossman showed how sanjo could evolve in the 21st century. He stepped beyond the fixed rhythms and melodic formulas, uncovering another essence: waves and flow. While many Western composers approached sanjo only through vibrato, Crossman grasped its deeper nature: nong (弄), the art of play and teasing within sound. His mastery of this was remarkable.”
Review: Yoon Jung-kang, Good Stage, October 2025
Bruce Crossman 