Darius Brubeck Official Website - Darius Brubeck Jazz musician

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 2023. The University of Illinois Press published an international edition of Playing the Changes in 2024. He is the the subject of a documentary film by indepenent filmmaker Michiel ten Kleij titled Playing the Changes: Tracking Darius Brubeck thtal premiered in Paris in April, 2024 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’.

Read reviews of The Darius Brubeck Quartet playing some of Dave Brubeck’s famous titles at the Union Chapel, London, from Jazzwise and UK Jazz News.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Our upcoming events are listed below. For our past events, click here.

Summer Concerts 2026

The Darius Brubeck Quartet — Photo credit: Yves Prieto from the Parisot Arts En Balade Festival

This is an advance notice of our upcoming concerts for summer 2026. More details will be added in due course.

May 17: Los Angeles, USA
June 4: Menuhin Hall, Cobham, Surrey
June 5: The Lighthouse, Poole
June 6: Rhosygilwen, Wales
July 10: St George’s Bristol
July 11: Buxton Jazz Festival

Film date at Provence Arts Festival du Film

Provence Arts Festival du Film will be showing Playing the Changes, the film that charts Darius and Cathy Brubeck’s transformational impact on the South African contemporary music scene as they set up the first jazz degree course in the country at the University of Kwazulu-Natal.

The screening will take place on 1st August at 3pm local time, in the Salle Polyvalente de Ménerbes.

Info and bookings

More about Playing the Changes – the film

Let Freedom Swing album release

Click here to listen

On Let Freedom Swing, the latest release from Blue Engine Records, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis celebrates the charismatic leaders who gave voice to the struggle for freedom. Originally recorded live during a 2004 concert, the album features six stunning, sprawling musical commissions that paint a backdrop for inspirational oratory on liberty by Václav Havel, Lyndon B. Johnson, Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Desmond Tutu.

Delivering these leaders’ inspirational words are modern icons including Rev. Calvin O. Butts III, Patricia Clarkson, Glenn Close, Keith David, Morgan Freeman, Mario Van Peebles, and Alfre Woodard. The original commissions themselves were composed by a masterful array of jazz composers: Toshiko Akiyoshi, Darin Atwater, Darius Brubeck, Billy Childs, Jimmy Heath, Zim Ngqawana, and Emil Viklicky.

Let Freedom Swing is a stirring statement of purpose on behalf of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s ongoing JazzCall for Freedom campaign, which also includes the JLCO’s recently released record We the People. Both albums encourage listeners to stand up for unity and civil liberties during this crucial moment in our nation’s history. So, answer the call and immerse yourself in Let Freedom Swing, a record that will restore your faith in democracy and remind you of jazz’s power to reanimate our nobler sentiments.