Brian Woods, pianist and music director for classical programming at the World Chess Hall of Fame, will release his debut album, Wanderings, on July 12. Across the album, Woods performs piano compositions by Frédéric Chopin, Clara Schumann, Lili Boulanger, and Amy Beach.
We spoke with Woods about the album and its inspirations ahead of its release. The CD can be preordered now on Woods’ website, and the full album will be available on streaming services.
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This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
What inspired you to record Wanderings?
Being in the classical music community, you have a lot of friends who are in the international community. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, I heard from a lot of my friends, both Russians and Ukrainians, who were outraged and heartbroken at what was going on over there. They were most upset about the fact that they couldn’t go back to their homelands because of all the violence.
It got me thinking about a lot of classical composers who dealt with this idea of not being able to go back to their homeland, or the idea of being on the outside looking into a situation they can’t be a part of. Frédéric Chopin was born in Poland and spent the rest of his life outside of his birth country because of civil unrest. So he was an easy composer that came to mind. I decided to focus on the music of women composers as well, because women composers have been unrightfully left out of the classical music canon for so long. It reminded me again of this idea of being on the outside looking in, and giving someone a platform to be heard when they didn’t get the chance to be heard before.
Chopin’s Polishness was part of his music in many ways. He wrote a lot of music inspired by Polish dances, for instance. A lot of his music is very inspired by the music of his homeland. But he had to leave very early in life…You have this identity that you’re born with, and those influences are a part of your life. But what does that mean, as an artist, when that identity is stripped away from you because of distance, whether that be distance in terms of mileage or in terms of time? How does that continue to influence who you are, and the kind of art that you create, even though it feels far away from you?
Have you gained any more clarity on those questions?
I think the nature of those questions will always be open-ended, only because it’s different for every person. I will say, as far as my own identity is concerned in relation to the art that I create, classical musicians are sort of like cover bands in a sense. A lot of what we do is playing music that was written by someone else. This is someone else’s experience that I’m recreating through the lens of my own life and experiences. For instance, I’m not a Polish person. But I related very closely to this idea of Chopin having to constantly recreate what he was doing because of being in a new circumstance or being in a new phase of life. That resonated with me a lot.
It’s almost like you’re reading a really good book…You feel a relationship with the characters, or maybe you recognize something that they’re going through. Even though it’s not something you created, you feel very much a part of it. I have a bit of a different situation, because music is a unique art form in that it’s never really finished until it’s performed. With visual art, you can go and look at it, and that’s the finished product. If you look at a piece of music, in terms of the dots on the page, it’s not really finished, because it’s the execution of the piece that’s its fullest form…And in that performance, it’s something totally new every single time.
I shied away from making recordings for the longest time, because I feel like music is such a living art form. Every performance is different. Every time I play one of these pieces, it’s going to sound very different, because maybe I take more time, or maybe I play something faster, slower, louder, or softer. But I think this was a really exciting project for me to make some strong decisions about how I wanted to interpret this music written by someone else.
A moment ago, you alluded to the potential for art to foster empathy—do you think there are limits to that potential?
I don’t think it’s necessarily quantifiable. I think it’s going to be different for everyone in terms of how much empathy that art can inspire. I think the good news is that it’s always a part of art, or a concert experience in general. At its core, it’s just people coming together to experience something at the same time. Even if the recording is not a live performance, I’ve put this recording out into the world, and people all over have access to it…There’s an added layer as a classical musician. Yes, there are my experiences, but I’m also letting you know about, maybe 200 years ago, what someone else was going through. And that was something similar to what we’re all going through right now. The human experience changes in many ways, but there are some things that stay consistent. I try to make that a focus of the art I create.
