Joshua Bell & Marija Stroke perform music from Einstein’s Light
A digital download from Sony Classical, Einstein’s Light consists of five movements for violin and piano inspired by music that Albert Einstein loved and played: Mozart’s Sonata K.378 and Bach’s Sarabande from Suite No. II in D Minor. Composed for the film by Nickolas Barris, the music of Einstein’s Light is available as sheet music for performers (with optional visualizations from the film that may be shown during performances) from Lauren Keiser Music/Hal Leonard. To listen: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/einsteins-light-ep/id1061479273
Chopin Dreams, pianist Carlo Grante
Available as a CD or digital download from Naxos American Classics, Chopin Dreams presents Italian pianist Carlo Grante playing two major piano works he commissioned and premiered: Chopin Dreams and Seven Thoughts Considered as Music. An added bonus: 6 piano puzzlers in the style of Chopin from Bruce’s Piano Puzzler show on Performance Today. The review of Chopin Dreams in Gramophone in January 2017 wrote of Bruce Adolphe: “…his original compositions convey a compelling voice, high craft, authenticity, communicative immediacy and substance.” To listen: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/adolphe-piano-music/id1169198091
Milken Archive/Naxos: American Classics
Bruce Adolphe:
2004 Grammy for Best Producer!
Ladino Songs of Love and Suffering
Mikhoels the Wise (excerpt)
Out of the Whirlwind (oratorio based on texts and melodies by victims and survivors of the Holocaust). Performers: sopranos Lucy Shelton, Erie Mills; mezzo Phyllis Pancella; tenor John Aler; baritone Nathaniel Watson; guitarist Eliot Fisk; French hornist David Jolley; Seattle Symphony with Gerard Schwarz; CCM Wind Symphony with Rodney Winther.
available at amazon. It is possible to listen to the album if you subscribe to Naxos on the Naxos website.
music@menlo live!: Bridging the Ages
Bruce Adolphe: String Quartet No. 4 (Whispers of Mortality)
Miami String Quartet
with Schubert’s Death and the Maiden available at music@menlo live! To hear the second movement (from the CD) visit the Media Page and click on the audio file.
Artistled: For David and Wu Han
Adolphe:Couple
Plus music by Jalbert, Tsontakis, and Auerbach
available at Artistled
New World Records: Turning, Returning
Music by Bruce Adolphe: string quartets 1 and 2; In Memories of…; And All Is Always Now.
originally on CRI; The Brentano String Quartet and pianist Marija Stroke
available at New World Records.
Delos: Five American Clarinet Quintets — David Shifrin, clarinet
music by Bruce Adolphe; Ellen Taaffe Zwillich; Bright Sheng; Joan Tower; John Corigliano.
Ida Kavafian, Ani Kavafian, violins; Walter Trampler, viola; Fred Sherry, cello.
available at amazon.com
Summit: Dorian Wind Quintet: American Premieres
Music by Adolphe, Tower, Schifrin, De Jong, Hoiby
available at amazon.com
Soundbrush Records: 25 x 25 (twenty-five premieres for twenty-five years)
Founded in 1988 by conductor Harold Rosenbaum, The New York Virtuoso Singers has become this country’s leading exponent of contemporary choral music. To celebrate it’s 25th anniversary, the group commissioned America’s leading composers to each write a work, creating a unique panorama of contemporary choral music. Works by: Mark Adamo/Bruce Adolphe/William Bolcom/John Corigliano/Richard Danielpour/Roger Davidson/David Del Tredici/David Felder/John Harbison/Stephen Hartke/Jennifer Higdon/Aaron Jay Kernis/David Lang/Fred Lerdahl/Thea Musgrave/Shulamit Ran/Joseph Schwantner/Steven Stucky/Augusta Read Thomas/Joan Tower/George Tsontakis/Richard Wernick/Chen Yi/Yehudi Wyner/Ellen Taaffe Zwilich available from sound brush records.
CDs for Kids and the Whole Family
Marita and Her Heart’s Desire (A Musical Fairy Tale)
Telarc
with Itzhak Perlman and The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center
available from amazon.com
Tyrannosaurus Sue:
A Cretaceous Concerto
performed by The Chicago Chamber Musicians
A powerful portrayal of the life and times of a Tyrannosaurus rex named Sue told in seven dramatic scenes. (The Tyrannosaurus named Sue is portrayed by a trombone!)
available from The Learning Maestros or download from amazon, iTunes, or CD Baby. Listen to highlights on iTunes.
The Musical Rexicon
Book
A fun and entertaining activity book that explores music and science and includes engaging, whimsical and informative puzzles, games and drawings.
available from The Learning Maestros
Red Dogs and Pink Skies: Paul Gauguin on Painting and Music
Book w/CD inside
An engaging testament to Gauguin in music, images and text, replete with quotes from Gauguin’s writings, and enhanced by a timeline highlighting events in the artist’s life in the context of music, science, literature, politics, and daily life.
available from The Learning Maestros. You can hear some of the music and see a video of the book/CD on the Media Page. The music CD is available alone, see below.
Red Dogs and Pink Skies: A Musical Celebration of Paul Gauguin
CD only (see above for book/CD combination)
Inspired by Gauguin’s paintings and his Tahitian journal Noa Noa, Bruce Adolphe’s musical hommage colorfully evokes the painter’s world.
available from The Learning Maestros. You can hear some of the music and also watch a video about the book/CD on the Media Page. You can also listen to more highlights on iTunes.
Tough Turkey in the Big City:
A Feathered Tale
What happens when a turkey from the sticks meets a Park Avenue Pigeon? With the feel of an old-time radio story, Tough Turkey in the Big City follows the comic blunders of Tom Turkey, who leaves the farm to try his luck in the big city. With David Taylor, bass trombone, as the Turkey!
available from The Learning Maestros or download from amazon, iTunes, or CD Baby. Listen to highlights on iTunes.
Books
Praise for The Mind’s Ear, second edition, published 2013: “Long known as one of our most articulate and charismatic speakers on music, Bruce Adolphe here gives us one of the freshest books on the musical imagination ever written.”
Glenn Watkins, Earl V. Moore Professor Emeritus, University of Michigan; author of Soundings; Pyramids at the Louvre; Proof through the Night: Music and the Great War; and The Gesualdo Hex.
“The depth of his perceptions on music as a universal and integral part of our world are as riveting as his compositions and the lectures for which he is so well known.” CityBeat, Harrisburg, PA., 1997
“Written with grace, intelligence, and authority, never patronizing or arcane, generously leavened by wit and humor, Of Mozart, Parrots, and Cherry Blossoms in the Wind may well speak to a postmodern hunger. This is a book that will shake music-lovers awake from the stupefied torpors of overfamiliar thinking patterns, and will likely tweak the perceptions of experienced professional musicians no less. Highly recommended.”
Fanfare, 2000
Current Books in Print:
The Mind’s Ear: Exercises for Improving the Musical Imagination for Performers, Listeners, and Composers (a revised and expanded second edition)
published by Oxford Univeristy Press. available from amazon.
What to Listen for in the World (reflections on music in our lives)
published by Limelight Editions/Amadeus Press
available from amazon.com
Of Mozart, Parrots, and Cherry Blossoms in the Wind: A Composer Explores Mysteries of the Musical Mind
published by Limelight Editions/Amadeus Press
available from amazon.com
Piano Puzzlers - As Heard on APM’s Performance Today
Brand-new edition of Bruce Adolphe’s Piano Puzzlers as heard on American Public Media’s “Performance Today.” Includes 32 tunes with songs by Gershwin, Berlin, Arlen, Porter, Rodgers, Fats Waller, Lennon & McCartney, and others disguised in the styles of Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Janacek, Debussy, Ravel, Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Bartok, and Copland. Includes an introduction by Fred Child, host of “Performance Today” as well as background info by Bruce Adolphe. available from amazon.
Piano Puzzlers
On public radio stations throughout the country, Bruce Adolphe, creative director of PollyRhythm Productions, plays popular melodies disguised as pieces by great Classical composers and contestants call in to guess the tune and the composer whose style Bruce is imitating. For the first time, 30 of Bruce’s Piano Puzzlers are available as sheet music!
available from The Learning Maestros or amazon.com
