Adam Bruckner
Adam Bruckner
Adam Bruckner is a family medicine doctor in Aiken, South Carolina affiliated with Aiken Regional Medical Centers and Piedmont Augusta Hospital.
Bruckner has spent his free time helping homeless men make ends meet, so when a friend asked him to assess a murder case, Bruckner did not hesitate.
Early Life and Education
Bruckner was an iconic Romantic-era composer whose religious background inspired many groundbreaking compositions that advanced orchestral and compositional techniques on an unprecedented scale. His works remain major influences for orchestrators and composers of today.
Born in Ansfelden, Austria and raised in Vienna with Simon Sechter and Otto Kitzler as his teachers, he began his organistry career at St Florian monastery in Linz shortly thereafter.
He was noted for his intense devotion to spiritual life and unceasing desire for musical study, revision and improvement. Though often disapproved of by his contemporaries such as Arthur Nikisch and Franz Schalk, he always felt confident that his work deserved respect; therefore he left all manuscripts of his compositions to the National Library of Vienna upon his death.
Professional Career
Adam Bruckner was a professional soccer player for Philadelphia KiXX, but in his off time spent much of his time helping Center City’s homeless. He assisted them in getting ID cards, job training opportunities and was there when one of their friends was murdered in July 2002.
After his professional career, he transitioned into academia at the University of Washington. His research interests include hypervelocity accelerators, in situ resource utilization on planets other than earth, space propulsion systems, space power systems and energy conversion as well as biomedical applications of lasers.
He is known as one of the co-inventors of two ground breaking technologies – ram accelerator, which uses chemical propulsion for hypervelocity projectile launch, and liquid droplet heat exchanger, an approach to thermal management in space power systems. Furthermore, he has published over 180 technical papers and reports in these fields as well as six U.S. patents covering these or similar topics.
Achievement and Honors
Adam Bruckner has made groundbreaking contributions in several fields. His research spans hypervelocity accelerators, in situ resource utilization on planets such as Mars, space propulsion systems and space power systems.
He is the recipient of numerous honors and awards throughout his career, such as the British Association Medal and National Academy of Science’s Award for Achievement in Engineering.
He is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and serves as professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of Washington.
Bruckner began his musical studies at an Augustinian monastery in Sankt Florian. Here he studied both choral and organ music. This place provided him with great spiritual nourishment; furthermore he was deeply moved by their large Baroque organ.
Personal Life
Bruckner was a religious Romantic composer and church organist from a provincial background who displayed social naivete at times; nevertheless, his music became widely performed due to its masterful compositional ability.
He composed 11 symphonies and Masses, such as the popular Mass in E Minor (1868) and his triptych of festive masses. His symphonies stand as landmarks of Austro-German Romanticism with their rich harmonic language and strong polyphonic features.
As a teenager, Bruckner served as a choir boy at St. Florian monastery. Later he taught at Linz Cathedral School as well as Windhaag and Kronstorf schools.