Thuenpa Puen Zhi (Four Harmonious Friends)

Commissioned by Dr. Steve Wilson, University of Texas at El Paso

The world premiere took place at the Off the Hook Arts Festival on June 21, 22, and 23, 2017 in Fort Collins, Colorado and in Estes Park at the Stanley Hotel. Next, the work will be performed at Princeton University Concerts on November 4th, 2017, and in Tully Hall, presented by The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, on March 11, 2018. I composed the work for: Steve Wilson (bass trombone); Mike Block (cello); Kaoru Watanabe (shinebue); and Shane Shanahan (world percussion). I will join them as pianist and narrator for these performances.

Left to Right: Mike Block, cello; Steve Wilson, bass trombone; Bruce Adolphe, keyboard; Shane Shanahan, percussion; Kaoru Watanabe, shinobue. At Off the Hook Arts Festival in the Music District, Fort Collins, Colorado.

January 14 to 21, Bruce Adolphe will be composer-in-residence at the Ocean Reef Chamber Music Festival, directed by Anne-Marie McDermott. The festival artists will perform the world premiere of Out of the Air for clarinet, cello, and piano, commissioned by the ORCMF.

Ocean Reef Chamber Music Festival musicians

On Saturday, November 11th, 2017, Scott St. John, violinist, plays the solo part in “I Will Not Remain Silent”, a violin concerto inspired by the life of Rabbi Joachim Prinz, with the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, Houston, Texas. Saturday, Nov 11 2017, 5:00pm at The Church of St. John the Divine. You can watch it live streamed. http://rocohouston.org/performances/courageous-catalyst/

Michael Stern

Scott St. John

January 26, 2017: Bruce Adolphe will be the keynote speaker at the Colorado Music Educators Association conference

January 21 and 22, 2017: Violinist Daniel Hope played the West Coast premiere of I Will Not Remain Silent (violin concerto inspired by the life of Joachim Prinz) with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra conducted by Jeffrey Kahane.

In an article on Violinist.com, Daniel Hope commented about the concerto:

The violin concerto “I Will Not Remain Silent” is “a fantastic, extremely passionate, lyrical concerto that tells the story of a fascinating man,” Hope told me on Tuesday by phone in LA. The piece, written by Bruce Adolphe, tells the story of Rabbi Joachim Prinz, who escaped Hitler’s Germany to settle in the United States. “(Prinz) believed passionately that the worst thing you could do was to remain silent. He spoke up against racism, against prejudice and against what was happening, both in Nazi Germany, and then in the 1950s and 60s in the United States, when he became a very vocal candidate for human rights.”

“He didn’t draw any boxes around different types of oppression,” Hope said, “oppression was oppression for him.”

In the concerto, which Hope will play next weekend with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Adolphe attempts to demonstrate two different worlds: the world of 1930s Germany and the Berlin of the Nazis; and the world of Civil Rights-era America and Martin Luther King. “He’s done that in an extremely refined way, by switching gears musically,” Hope said. The piece has two movements, each one representing those different times. “He’s blended spirituals and songs from the Civil Rights movement, which he’s very cleverly woven into the texture of the second movement. In the same way, (in the first movement) he’s taken the sounds of Berlin and the sounds of war — from explosions to gunshots to all the rest of it, coming out from the orchestra. The violin is in the center, the voice of this rabbi, Prinz, who is constantly trying to stay above what’s going on. The piece is really like a historical journey, a terrific piece.”

November 17 and 18: Bruce Adolphe lectures on his music, creativity, and Jewish cultural identity at McGill University.

September 14: MoMath (the National Museum of Mathematics, New York) presents music from Bruce Adolphe’s Einstein’s Light with violinist Mark Steinberg and pianist Marija Stroke, and visualizations from the film by Nickolas Barris. Physicist Cumrun Vafa will speak about Einstein as part of the presentation. Location: Baruch College.

Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Oregon, presents music by Bruce Adolphe: Einstein’s Light with Jennifer Frautschi, violin, and Bruce Adolphe, piano; Marita and Her Heart’s Desire with Michelle Marianna, narrator; Bruce Adolphe conducting the 12-piece ensemble.

Fabio Luisi conducts the world premiere of Bruce Adolphe’s Piano Concerto with Carlo Grante, piano soloist, and the Zürich Philharmonia on July 10th, 2016.

July 9: Bruce Adolphe’s Einstein’s Sarabande: The Loneliness of Genius will be performed as part of a concert honoring the 100th anniversary of Yehudi Menuhin at the Yehudi Menuhin School in Surrey, England.

July 9: 4:30 PM, Harris Concert Hall; Chamber music concert with violinist David Halen performing Einstein’s Sarabande: The Loneliness of Genius from Bruce Adolphe’s score to Einstein’s Light, the film by Nickolas Barris.

Off the Hook Arts Festival includes two world premieres of music by Bruce Adolphe:

June 28: Scenes from the opera-in-progress The Origin, libretto by Richard Powers. Scenes performed by soprano Christie Conover, tenor Joseph Gaines, and baritone Gregory Gerbrandt; pianist Tim Burns.

July 1: Guitarist Eliot Fisk will play the world premiere of Suite for Pete, a work composed for Eliot Fisk, in memory of Pete Seeger. In four movements: When Will We Ever Learn?; Fannie Lou Hammer; Chief Joseph; Let it Shine.

May 19: Bruce Adolphe speaks on The Sound of Human Rights at the University of Padua, Italy. Talk to include music by Mozart, Beethoven, Lutosławski, Penderecki, Pete Seeger, Eubie Blake, and Adolphe’s own I Will Not Remain Silent and works in progress.

Italian pianist Carlo Grante plays the European premiere of Bruce Adolphe’s Chopin Dreams at the Brahms-saal of the Musikverein, Vienna.

November 26th, 2015

Violinist Joshua Bell and pianist Marija Stroke perform highlights from Bruce Adolphe’s soundtrack for the film Einstein’s Light, a film by Nickolas Barris, at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton. During the live music, scenes from the movie will be shown on a screen above the performers. A discussion with Nickolas Barris, Bruce Adolphe, and physicist Robbert Dijgraaf follows the performance.

November 6th, 2015

Italian pianist Carlo Grante plays the world premiere of Chopin Dreams in Alice Tully Hall. Program: Chopin Second Sonata; Bruce Adolphe Chopin Dreams; Godowsky Studies on the Chopin Etudes. Chopin Dreams consists of six movements: New York Nocturne; Jazzurka; Piano Popping; Brooklyn Ballad; Quaalude; Hora.

September 15th, 2015, at 7:30 pm in Alice Tully Hall

Off the Hook Festival, directed by Bruce Adolphe and Jephta Bernstein, presents concerts, lectures, and a symposium on neuroscience, meditation and music from June 15 to 29th, 2015. Concerts and events in Fort Collins, Denver, and Boulder. Featured works by Bruce Adolphe include Self Comes to Mind with cellist Bion Tsang and Whispers of Mortality with the Miami String Quartet. Symposium guest speakers include author Douglas J. Pennick and Assal Habibi and Rael Cahn, both neuroscientists from the Brain and Creativity Institute in Los Angeles. http://www.projectchambermusic.org/programs/off-the-hook/

June 15th to 29th, 2015

I Will Not Remain Silent

The European premiere of Bruce Adolphe’s violin concerto about the life of Joachim Prinz, I Will Not Remain Silent, was be performed at KKL in Luzern, Switzerland; Ilya Gringolts, violin soloist; Alessio Allegrini conductor, the Human Rights Orchestra. This was a benefit concert in support of Maher, a non-governmental organization centered near Pune, India. For details, visit this link: http://www.musiciansforhumanrights.org/concerts-1/

April 29th, 2015

“The Neuroscience of Art” Bruce Adolphe will be visiting faculty at the Salzburg Global Seminar from February 20 to 23, 2015, speaking about his music for “Einstein’s Light”, the film by Nickolas Barris. The score focuses on Einstein’s love of Mozart and Bach, and his devotion to the violin. Since the seminar is in Salzburg, Bruce will feature music from the film that relates to Mozart.

January 24, 2025
“I Will Not Remain Silent” — a violin concerto based on the life of Joachim Prinz.
The IRIS Orchestra conducted by Michael Stern; Sharon Roffman, violin soloist. Memphis, TN. For information about this work, visit the In Progress page.

January 19th, 2015

Auditorium of UNESCO, Paris

At the opening ceremony of the United Nations Year of Light 2015 and the hundredth anniversary of general relativity, Joshua Bell and Marija Stroke will perform excerpts from Bruce Adolphe’s score for Einstein’s Light, a film by Nickolas Barris.

October 27 & 28, 2014

Musics of Memory world premiere at Brain and Creativity Institute (USC), Los Angeles, CA

for piano, marimba, harp, and guitar

Performers: Norman Krieger, piano; Kenneth McGrath, marimba; Allison Allport, harp; Brian Head, guitar.

The movements:

1. Lived Experience (piano solo)
2. Mapping (guitar, marimba, harp)
3. Reassessed, Rearranged (all)
4. Recollection (piano solo, accompanied by guitar, marimba, harp)

Musics of Memory is based on writings about how memory works in the brain by Antonio Damasio. The piece is scored for four polyphonic instruments capable of playing harmony and rich textures — piano, guitar, marimba, and harp— so that they may fully present different versions of the same music.

In Lived Experience, the piano lays out all the ideas —motifs, harmonies, gestures, rhythms— of the entire work. In Mapping, the guitar, marimba, and harp perform solos that map altered versions of the music originally stated by the piano. The third movement, Reassessed, Rearranged, consists of all the instruments exploring various emotional contexts for the same ideas, individually and together, coming to a section of heightened emotion and drama. In the final movement, Recollection, the piano plays what seems like the opening solo (Lived Experience), but nothing is quite the same; additionally the other instruments amplify aspects of these ideas, with resonance from the previous movements.

The work is dedicated to the memory of Nicholas Maw, a great British composer and dear friend, who at the end suffered from Alzheimer’s disease.

http://www.mohawktrailconcerts.org/2014-summer-festival/

July 25, 26 concerts in Shelburne Falls, MA

See http://www.sealbayfestival.org/main.html

CONCERT
New Era Art Gallery, Vinalhaven Island
7:00 pm, Wednesday, July 9

CONCERT
Waterfall Arts Center, Belfast
7:00pm, Thursday, July 10

CONCERT
Atlantic Music Festival, Waterville
7:00 pm, Friday, July 11

CONCERT
Barn Gallery, Ogunquit
Friday, July 12

June 10 - 22 Off the Hook Festival
This will be our third summer of this festival, co-directed by Jephta Bernstein and Bruce Adolphe.
This summer features two Adolphe works — Tough Turkey in the Big City and Bridgehampton Concerto. To hear the first movement of the Bridgehampton Concerto, visit the Media Page and click on Playlist on the video player. You can hear highlights of Tough Turkey in the Big City on iTunes. The festival also presents music of Steve Reich, Stravinsky, Gershwin, Bach, Marcello, Vivaldi, and more. Check it out at Off the Hook!.

The End of Tonight world premiere. New work for three mezzo-sopranos, three cellos, and piano. Poems by Nathalie Handal. May 17, 7:30 pm. WNYC’s The Green Space/44 Charlton Street, New York

For details go to St.-Urban website.

Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra plays Bruce Adolphe’s set of Concertinos highlighting each section of the orchestra in separate pieces and then all coming together for educational concerts. Commissioned by the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. April 5, 2014/ Two performances: 9:30 am and 11 am at the Ordway Theater. See Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra website.

March 24, Savannah Music Festival, Savannah, Georgia,
12:30 pm, Venue: Charles H. Morris Center

March 19 -22, 2014; Concerts, lectures, workshops, master classes

Leave it to Ludwig! A Beethoven concert for all ages. The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Alice Tully Hall, March 16 at 2 pm.

Leave it to Ludwig, a Beethoven concert for all ages. The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center comes toPrinceton University. March 15, at 1 pm.

February 5, 12, 19, 26:
Inside Chamber Music lectures on repertoire for the 2013-14 season. See The Chamber Music of Lincoln Center Lecture Series for details.

Jan 29, 2025
Concert Live in St. Simons, Georgia

October 19 & 20, 2013
U.S. premiere of Do You Dream in Color? with mezzo-soprano Laurie Rubin and the LA Chamber Orchestra conducted by Jeffrey Kahane. Royce Hall, Ambassador Theater.