| Short Bio | Composer, author, lecturer, and performer Bruce Adolphe — known to millions of Americans from his public radio show Piano Puzzlers, which has been broadcast weekly on Performance Today, hosted by Fred Child, since 2002 — has created a substantial body of chamber music and orchestral works inspired by science, visual arts, and human rights. Mr. Adolphe has composed several works based on writings by neuroscientist Antonio Damasio: Body Loops (piano and orchestra); Memories of a Possible Future (piano and string quartet); Self Comes to Mind (solo cello and two percussionists); Obedient Choir of Emotions (chorus and piano); and Musics of Memory (piano, marimba, harp, guitar). Yo-Yo Ma premiered Self Comes to Mind, with a text written by Antonio Damasio especially for the project, in 2009 at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Mr. Adolphe’s other science-based music include Einstein’s Light for violin and piano, recorded by Joshua Bell and Marija Stroke on Sony Classical, and his tribute to NASA scientist and astronaut Piers Sellers, I saw how fragile and infinitely precious the world is, which received its world premiere at the Off the Hook Arts Festival in Colorado in 2018 and was performed at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in March, 2019. Among his human rights works are I Will Not Remain Silent for violin and orchestra and Reach Out, Raise Hope, Change Society for chorus, wind quintet, and three percussionists, both recorded on the Naxos/Milken Archive label. Mr. Adolphe is the resident lecturer and director of family concerts for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the author of several books, including Visions and Decisions: Imagination and Technique in Music Composition (Cambridge, 2023); The Mind’s Ear (third edition, 2021, OUP). He contributed the chapter “The Musical Imagination: Mystery and Method in Musical Composition” to the recently published book Secrets of Creativity: What Neuroscience, the Arts, and Our Minds Reveal (OUP, 2019), an anthology of writings by neuroscientists and artists. Mr. Adolphe contributed the chapter “The Sound of Human Rights: Wordless Music that Speaks for Humanity” to The Routledge Guide to Music and Human Rights (2022). |
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| Long Bio | Bruce Adolphe is a composer, educator, performer, and author whose music is performed worldwide by renowned artists, including Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Fabio Luisi, Joshua Bell, Angel Blue, Daniel Hope, Sylvia McNair, Carlo Grante, the Washington National Opera, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Jeffrey Kahane and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Zürich Philharmonia, the Zürich Chamber Orchestra, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, ROCO in Houston, the IRIS Orchestra, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Beaux Arts Trio, the Chicago Chamber Musicians, the Brentano String Quartet, the Miami Quartet, the Cassatt Quartet, the Currende Ensemble of Belgium, members of the Silk Road Ensemble, and over 60 symphony orchestras worldwide. His books and other writings are published by Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Routledge, and Globe Pequot.
Some career highlights include: Itzhak Perlman’s world premiere performances of Adolphe’s solo violin work, The Bitter, Sour, Salt Suite, at The Kennedy Center and Avery Fisher Hall; Yo-Yo Ma playing the world premiere of Self Comes to Mind, a work based on a text written for the project by neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, at the American Museum of Natural History; Angel Blue singing the world premiere of Water Songs at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; Fabio Luisi conducting the world premiere of Diesen Kuss der ganzen Welt with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra; violinist Daniel Hope performing the violin concerto I Will Not Remain Silent with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra conducted by Jeffrey Kahane in 2017 and with the Essen Philharmonie conducted by Jaime Martin in 2018; Joshua Bell performing world premiere of Einstein’s Light with pianist Marija Stroke at UNESCO in Paris as the finale of the United Nations Year of Light, 2015; the Washington National Opera performances of Let Freedom Sing: the story of Marian Anderson, libretto by Carolivia Herron; an evening of Adolphe chamber works at The Kennedy Center; two full-length operas on Jewish subjects at The 92nd Street Y (Mikhoels the Wise and The False Messiah); ten world premieres at The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
Over the past 30 plus years, Mr. Adolphe has served as composer-in-residence at many festivals and institutions throughout the United States for which he has also created and led educational concerts and workshops for all ages and levels of musical accomplishment. A key figure at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 1992, Mr. Adolphe is the founder and director of the Society’s Meet the Music family concert series and is also the Society’s resident lecturer. He has appeared as a commentator on Live From Lincoln Center television and as a regular lecturer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The author of four books on music, Mr. Adolphe has taught at Yale, Juilliard, and New York University and is a frequent guest lecturer at colleges and conservatories around the world. |
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