UW Department of Music Presents Guest Pianist Brooks Hafey Feb. 2

Guest pianist Brooks Hafey will perform “The Arithmetic of Sound: Piano Music of Claude Debussy” Saturday, Feb. 2, at 7:30 p.m. in the Buchanan Center for the Performing Arts recital hall. (Brooks Hafey Photo)

Guest pianist Brooks Hafey will perform “The Arithmetic of Sound: Piano Music of Claude Debussy” Saturday, Feb. 2, at 7:30 p.m. in the Buchanan Center for the Performing Arts recital hall. The UW Department of Music sponsors the free public concert.

Works by Debussy include “Deux Arabesques,” “La plus que lente, Estampes,” “12 Etudes” and selections from “Préludes, 2e livre.”

Hafey has performed as a soloist in a wide range of venues in the U.S., including Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall in New York City, as well as overseas in France, Italy and Norway. He also is an active chamber musician, collaborative artist and conductor. In 2008, Hafey made his debut as an opera conductor in Novafeltria, Italy, with Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, and has returned to Italy to conduct Puccini’s “Suor Angelica” and “Gianni Schicchi.”

Hafey's wide-ranging repertoire spans from the works of French Baroque masters Jean-Philippe Rameau and François Couperin to the composers of the 21st century. An advocate of contemporary piano composition, Hafey has presented a lecture recital of “Ghost Variations” by American composer and Grawemeyer Award-winner George Tsontakis.

He has degrees in piano performance from the University of Missouri-Columbia and Florida State University. He also has studied at the Conservatoire Municipale de Mennecy in France under Juan Davila. Hafey has taught at Gulf Coast State College in Panama City, Fla., and Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas, and is currently an assistant professor of music at Chadron State College in Nebraska.

In celebration of the Debussy centenary in 2018, Hafey performed the complete piano works and chamber works with piano of Claude Debussy.