About Hagen
Brian Hagen, owner of BH Arts, lives in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, near the capital city of Madison. His style is an eclectic mixture of Adult Contemporary Jazz, Classical, New Age, and Space Music. He has published CDs, performs weekly at La Brioche, a local fine restaurant, and is working on his next album. [Brian to update the CD count and add Reflections II (2023) and Midnight Moods.]
His debut release, Reflections, is a twenty one track solo piano album that combines Classical pieces with original arrangements of Classical themes. Album two, inward spaces ... outward places, features solo piano along with ensemble arrangements in various genres, including Space Music and Adult Contemporary Jazz. His 2017 release, You're The One, ventures further into emotional ranges of light and darkness. The 2022 release, Portraits, is a fifty nine minute collection of all original solo compositions. Originally slated as a musical gallery, it can also be heard as a journey, and some have suggested a love story. It traverses discovery, adventure, joy, conflict, tragic loss, reunion, and peaceful resolution. Reflections II (2023) gathers keyboard music from the Baroque era to the early twentieth century.
Hagen began piano lessons at age four and started learning jazz and rock repertoire before entering high school. As a teenager he became a devoted follower of rock icons Keith Emerson, Jon Lord, and Rick Wakeman, jazz legends Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, and Herbie Hancock, and classical masters such as Vladimir Horowitz and Artur Rubinstein. As a music major at Illinois State University, he took two semesters of electronic music production with classic analog synthesizers and studied composition with a disciple of Igor Stravinsky. He also took part in multi ethnic performing ensembles. One ensemble class paid for its all original album with performance revenue, and the album became the basis for an improvisational theater production starring the class members.
After graduation, Hagen performed with a range of ensembles in the greater Chicago area, including rock bands, lounge singers, and jazz groups. After moving to Madison in 1996, he earned an Associate's degree in Business Administration with a music emphasis at Globe University. He composed and performed soundtracks for the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Cinematique Film Festival and joined Madison's Ark Improvisational Theater ensemble as a musical contributor. He is a featured artist on Whisperings, Solo Piano Radio, Mainly Piano, and Enlightened Piano Radio.
Today Hagen continues to blend classic and modern influences in his piano and ensemble music. His music is available on major streaming services including Spotify. For more information, contact bharts@bharts.net or visit BH Arts on Facebook.
