Darius Brubeck

Darius Brubeck is an American jazz pianist, composer, author, and retired university professor residing in England with his wife, Catherine. Darius introduced the first university jazz course in Africa in 1984 and established the internationally famous Centre for Jazz & Popular Music on the Durban campus of the University of KwaZulu-Natal in 1989 and was its Director until 2005. Throughout this time he toured internationally leading professional and student groups and playing with some of South Africa’s top musicians. Playing the Changes, Darius and Catherine’s co-written memoir about their 23 years in South Africa, was launched in Durban by UKZN Press in May 2023. The University of Illinois Press will publish an international edition of Playing the Changes on July 9, 2024. (Meanwhile, the book is available in South Africa.) A documentary film also titled Playing the Changes covering related material premiered in Paris in April and is now on the international festival circuit.

Currently, he leads The Darius Brubeck Quartet based in London. He occasionally joins his USA-based brothers, Chris and Dan, in Brubecks Play Brubeck.

Downbeat Magazine listed The Darius Brubeck Quartet Live in Poland as among the ‘best of 2020’.