Bruce Petherick is a Autistic advocate, a sound designer and musician. Born in Melbourne, Australia and now living in Canada, Bruce spent many years recording and touring throughout the world with various bands, playing Classical, Jazz and Music Theatre.

He now concentrates on playing and recording his own music, as well as being an active advocate for Autism and especially Neurodivergent education. Bruce invites the listener into his music, into an acoustic space, letting them hear the intimate sound of the piano and to let the music emerge, rather than trying to force it.

His music is heavily influenced by classical music, especially Ravel, Debussyand Koechlin and more contemporary sounds like Ryuichi Sakamoto, Ólafur Arnalds, Nils Frahm and Max Richter. Recently his music has been used for dance works in Australia, for the Melbourne Fringe Festival with dancer Jacqui Maida, and in the United States with dancer Ana Miranda.

Bruce has created Sound Design for over a hundred shows, most recently for Morpheus Theatre and Scorpio Theatre in Calgary, Alberta.

Listen to Bruce Petherick’s music on his YouTube Channel

“…Repressive forces don’t stop people expressing themselves but rather force them to express themselves; what a relief to have nothing to say, the right to say nothing, because only then is there a chance of framing the rare, and ever rarer, thing that might be worth saying.”  Gilles Deleuze Negotiations

For many years I didn’t have too much that was worth saying in my music. Too often I was speaking another’s words, or another language, or performing rituals in a shallow spectacle. With maturity, I now feel my music says something worthy. I have always distrusted the idolatry of virtuosity – not the idea of a command of transcendental technique, but more the distaste of speed and power as the only reflection of musical profundity. It has taken me years to stop and listen. Listen to every note, every gesture and every extraneous sound that is produced in a performance. -Bruce Petherick