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“Bruce Adolphe reveals a deep sense of humanity and spirit in his extraordinary music.”
Off the Hook Arts Festival 2023: Visions and Decisions — Bruce Adolphe’s new book provides the focus of our 2023 summerfest with 3 concerts and a book talk.
The King, the Cat, and the Fiddle was commissioned by Daniel Hope, who gave the world premiere and subsequent European performances with the Zürich Chamber Orchestra. With a story by Daniel’s father, Christopher Hope, in collaboration with Yehudi Menuhin, The King, the Cat, and the Fiddle is a fun tale about a king who learns of the joy and power of music from the clever castle cat. The score by Bruce Adolphe features a solo violin, to be performed by Kelly Hall-Tompkins, and a string ensemble plus piano. Also on the program: Bruce’s The Nightingale. for solo violin (Kelly) and narrator. Bruce will narrate both stories.
Guillermo Figueroa conducts Adolphe’s Carnival of the Creatures at Music in the Mountains
Bruce’s new book Visions and Decisions: Imagination and Technique in Music Composition was published in February 2023 by Cambridge University Press as part of the Elements Series on Imagination and Creativity. To attend the book talk on April 25th at 6:30 in the Rose Studio of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, click here: http://tracking.wordfly.com/view?sid=MTY0NV8yOTA2XzQyMDhfNzIwMA
Bruce Adolphe as Inspector Pulse, Alice Tully Hall, 2023.
Bruce Adolphe, Artistic Director
Jephta Bernstein, Executive Director, Founder
This summer’s festival is called Dreaming and Thinking, focusing on the methods and mysteries of creativity in music, writing, and science. Musicians: pianists Marija Stroke and Michael Brown; violinists Kelly Hall-Tompkins, Deborah Buck, Kristin Lee, and Alice Ivy-Pemberton; violist Phillip Stevens; cellists Matthew Zalkind, Alice Yoo, Mihai Marica, and Käthe Jarka; and French hornist Carolyn Landis Kunicki.
Speakers: poet and scientist Pireeni Sundaralingam; scientist Scott Denning; author Benjamin Erlich; filmmaker Tristan Cook; and Bruce Adolphe.
See the website of Off the Hook Arts in Fort Collins Colorado for concert programs and speaker topics.
Scored for the Da Capo Chamber Players (flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano), Portraits is a series of tributes to the memories of musicians who were close to me, as well as to the players of Da Capo. The portraits are of: Nicholas Maw; Milton Babbitt; David Golub; George Perle; Laura Flax.
For the composers, I incorporated aspects of their musical personalities into their tributes; for the tribute to pianist David Golub, I created a portrait based on a Schubert impromptu that he frequently played as an encore; for the clarinetist Laura Flax, who was a longtime member of Da Capo, I composed a movement in which the clarinet is the soloist, in an intimate meditation that brings the entire work to a close.
This is a deeply personal project, but one that I hope will speak to the larger musical community, many of whom who knew and loved these musicians.
Bruce Adolphe
FABIO LUISI conducts
ANGEL BLUE soprano
TAYLOR RAVEN mezzo-soprano
ISSACHAH SAVAGE tenor
SOLOMAN HOWARD bass-baritone
DALLAS SYMPHONY CHORUS – JOSHUA HABERMANN director
BRUCE ADOLPHE Diesen Kuss der ganzen Welt! (This Kiss to the Whole World!) | DALLAS PREMIERE
BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 9, “Choral”
Bruce Adolphe is a composer, educator, performer and author whose “original compositions convey a compelling voice, high craft, authenticity, communicative immediacy and substance” (Gramophone).
Performances: May 12, 13, 14 at 7:30; May 15 at 3 pm. See website for tickets.
Tyrannosaurus Sue: A Cretaceous Concerto will be performed by the Orquesta Filarmónica in the beautiful Nezahualcoyotl Hall in Mexico City. 6pm start. One hour concert.
ROCO (River Oaks Chamber Orchestra) plays the premiere of Study in Solitude featuring Alecia Lawyer, oboe and the ROCO string section. LIVESTREAMED from the Holocaust Museum in Houston.
Study in Solitude is about the separation from friends and family during the pandemic, and about the sense of isolation experienced around the world.
Daniel Hope as violin soloist and narrator
For 2 violins, viola, 2 cellos. Commissioned by a consortium of music festivals including Salt Bay Chamberfest to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the work’s title comes from Ethan Canin’s novel A Doubter’s Almanac: “Are there not a thousand forms of sorrow? Is the sorrow of death the same as the sorrow of knowing the pain in a child’s future?”
Musical portraits in memory of Nicholas Maw, Milton Babbitt, George Perle, David Golub, and Laura Flax. Commissioned by the Da Capo Chamber Players for their 50th Anniversary.
PROGRAM:
Haydn: Quartet opus 71 no. 2
Bach: Contrapunctus no. 2 from Art of Fugue
Bruce Adolphe: ContraDictions (inspired by Contrapunctus no. 2)
Steven Mackey: ‘Lude (interwoven with Contrapunctus no. 11)
Schubert: Cello Quintet
Michael Kannen, cello
Bach: Contrapunctus no. 2 from Art of Fugue
Bruce Adolphe: ContraDictions (inspired by Contrapunctus no. 2)
Steven Mackey: ‘Lude (interwoven with Contrapunctus no. 11)
Mendelssohn: Quartet opus 80
Start:October 23 @ 7:30 pm
World Premiere of Diesen Kuss der ganzen Welt (This Kiss to the Whole World)
Commissioned by The Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Bravo!Vail
DALLAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Fabio Luisi, conductor
Alessio Bax, piano
B ADOLPHE Diesen Kuss der ganzen Welt! (“This Kiss to the Whole World!”)
SAINT-SAËNS Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 22
SCHUMANN Symphony No. 4 in D minor, Op. 120
The Savannah Music Festival and American Public Media present Bruce Adolphe and Fred Child in a concert of Piano Puzzlers.
Don’t miss this opportunity to participate in an episode of “Piano Puzzler,” the hugely popular weekly American Public Media (APM) program hosted by Fred Child as part of APM’s Performance Today. A proven hit among Savannah Music Festival-goers in 2014, “Piano Puzzler” features composer, scholar, author and educator Bruce Adolphe at the piano, challenging the audience to identify popular tunes performed in the style of classical composers. Adolphe is a renowned composer whose multifaceted career includes concurrent positions as resident lecturer and director of family concerts for The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, New York; composer-in-residence at the Brain and Creativity Institute, LA; founding creative director of The Learning Maestros education company; and artistic director of Off the Hook Arts Festival, Colorado. Child’s CD reviews appear on All Things Considered and his classical music reports appear on Morning Edition and Weekend Edition. He is a contributor to Billboard, a commentator for BBC Radio 3 and host for Live From Lincoln Center.
Water Songs — music by Bruce Adolphe; poems by Katherine Barrett Swett, Emily Dickinson, Shakespeare, James Joyce, Rumi, and statistics about water.
Join CMS for its return to the live stage at Lincoln Center with a program that spans continents. As a prelude to Dvořák’s beloved Piano Quintet, we will hear quintessentially American music, including ever-popular Gershwin and the world premiere of a new song cycle by Bruce Adolphe, composed for soprano Angel Blue, well-known to Lincoln Center audiences from her recent performances as Bess in the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Porgy and Bess.
Artists: Angel Blue, soprano; Bryan Wagorn, piano; Wu Han, piano; Kristin Lee, violin, Danbi Um, violin; Paul Neubauer, viola; David Finckel, cello
PROGRAM
SCHUBERT “Quartettsatz” (Quartet Movement) in C Minor, D 703
BRUCE ADOLPHE “Are There Not a Thousand Forms of Sorrow?” (2019 CMNW Commissioned World Premiere)
SCHUBERT Octet for Winds and Strings in F Major, D. 803, Op. 166
Program:
SCHUBERT “Quartettsatz” (Quartet Movement) in C Minor, D 703
BRUCE ADOLPHE “Are There Not a Thousand Forms of Sorrow?” (2019 CMNW Commissioned World Premiere)
SCHUBERT Octet for Winds and Strings in F Major, D. 803, Op. 166
The Dark, Coiled Intensity of f Minor
Bach Prelude in f minor from Book 2 of the Well-Tempered Clavier
Beethoven Quartet in f minor, Op. 95
Bruce Adolphe Coiled (inspired by Beethoven’s Op. 95) (2017)
Shostakovich Quartet No. 11 in f minor
Mendelssohn Quartet in f minor, Op. 80
The program starts with a Bach Prelude that introduces f minor as a key that admits little light, closed in and dense. In Op. 95 (“Serioso”), Beethoven wrote a work that is compact and brutal. When the Brentano Quartet approached Bruce Adolphe to write a work inspired by the Beethoven he answered immediately: “Opus 95: so many nuggets of genius: the unhinged rhythmic knots, the scales off the cliff's edge, the muttering, the gnashing of molars!” The result is his new work, “Coiled,” written for this program. That coiled intensity also informs Shostakovich’s Eleventh Quartet in f minor (Beethoven’s f minor is also his eleventh), that compressed, eloquent masterpiece. And it is no coincidence that Mendelssohn’s final quartet, written in the anguished aftermath of his beloved sister’s death, refers in key and affect directly to this seminal Beethoven work.
The Dark, Coiled Intensity of f Minor
Bach Prelude in f minor from Book 2 of the Well-Tempered Clavier
Beethoven Quartet in f minor, Op. 95
Bruce Adolphe Coiled (inspired by Beethoven’s Op. 95) (2017)
Shostakovich Quartet No. 11 in f minor
Mendelssohn Quartet in f minor, Op. 80
The program starts with a Bach Prelude that introduces f minor as a key that admits little light, closed in and dense. In Op. 95 (“Serioso”), Beethoven wrote a work that is compact and brutal. When the Brentano Quartet approached Bruce Adolphe to write a work inspired by the Beethoven he answered immediately: “Opus 95: so many nuggets of genius: the unhinged rhythmic knots, the scales off the cliff's edge, the muttering, the gnashing of molars!” The result is his new work, “Coiled,” written for this program. That coiled intensity also informs Shostakovich’s Eleventh Quartet in f minor (Beethoven’s f minor is also his eleventh), that compressed, eloquent masterpiece. And it is no coincidence that Mendelssohn’s final quartet, written in the anguished aftermath of his beloved sister’s death, refers in key and affect directly to this seminal Beethoven work.
The Dark, Coiled Intensity of f Minor
Bach Prelude in f minor from Book 2 of the Well-Tempered Clavier
Beethoven Quartet in f minor, Op. 95
Bruce Adolphe Coiled (inspired by Beethoven’s Op. 95) (2017)
Shostakovich Quartet No. 11 in f minor
Mendelssohn Quartet in f minor, Op. 80
The program starts with a Bach Prelude that introduces f minor as a key that admits little light, closed in and dense. In Op. 95 (“Serioso”), Beethoven wrote a work that is compact and brutal. When the Brentano Quartet approached Bruce Adolphe to write a work inspired by the Beethoven he answered immediately: “Opus 95: so many nuggets of genius: the unhinged rhythmic knots, the scales off the cliff's edge, the muttering, the gnashing of molars!” The result is his new work, “Coiled,” written for this program. That coiled intensity also informs Shostakovich’s Eleventh Quartet in f minor (Beethoven’s f minor is also his eleventh), that compressed, eloquent masterpiece. And it is no coincidence that Mendelssohn’s final quartet, written in the anguished aftermath of his beloved sister’s death, refers in key and affect directly to this seminal Beethoven work.
The Purple Palace is a fairy tale with a story by Louise Gikow and music by Bruce Adolphe. Commissioned by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra in 2000, The Purple Palace has been performed by orchestras around the world and on European and Asian tours by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.
Orchestra Miami is devoted to family concerts Elaine Rinaldi is their brilliant artistic director.
In the land of Chromatica, all is color and light until Princess Purple decrees that everything should be purple! Learn about diversity, colors, democracy and tolerance in this beautiful and charming piece, with a story by Louise Gikow & music composed by Bruce Adolphe. Narrated by a special guest and accompanied by Orchestra Miami with Elaine Rinaldi conducting.
The Purple Palace is a fairy tale with a story by Louise Gikow and music by Bruce Adolphe. Commissioned by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra in 2000, The Purple Palace has been performed by orchestras around the world and on European and Asian tours by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.
Orchestra Miami is devoted to family concerts Elaine Rinaldi is their brilliant artistic director.
In the land of Chromatica, all is color and light until Princess Purple decrees that everything should be purple! Learn about diversity, colors, democracy and tolerance in this beautiful and charming piece, with a story by Louise Gikow & music composed by Bruce Adolphe. Narrated by a special guest and accompanied by Orchestra Miami with Elaine Rinaldi conducting.
“Bruce Adolphe has written a new piece for the Brentano Quartet based on the first movement of Beethoven’s intensely dramatic F minor Quartetto serioso, and offset by compositions in the same compelling key by Mendelssohn and Shostakovich.” — BBC
Based on the children’s book by Lord Yehudi Menuhin and Christopher Hope, The King, the Cat, and the Fiddle, Bruce Adolphe’s musical version features Daniel Hope as violin soloist and narrator, along with:
Ikki Opitz violin
Carla Maria Rodrigues viola
Josephine Knight violoncello
Stéphane Logerot double bass
Jacques Ammon piano
Performed in German . For details: https://festspiele-mv.de/en/concerts/concert/program/vom-koenig-vom-kater-und-der-fiedel/
The Dark, Coiled Intensity of f Minor
Bach Prelude in f minor from Book 2 of the Well-Tempered Clavier
Beethoven Quartet in f minor, Op. 95
Bruce Adolphe Coiled (inspired by Beethoven’s Op. 95) (2017)
Shostakovich Quartet No. 11 in f minor
Mendelssohn Quartet in f minor, Op. 80
The program starts with a Bach Prelude that introduces f minor as a key that admits little light, closed in and dense. In Op. 95 (“Serioso”), Beethoven wrote a work that is compact and brutal. When the Brentano Quartet approached Bruce Adolphe to write a work inspired by the Beethoven he answered immediately: “Opus 95: so many nuggets of genius: the unhinged rhythmic knots, the scales off the cliff's edge, the muttering, the gnashing of molars!” The result is his new work, “Coiled,” written for this program. That coiled intensity also informs Shostakovich’s Eleventh Quartet in f minor (Beethoven’s f minor is also his eleventh), that compressed, eloquent masterpiece. And it is no coincidence that Mendelssohn’s final quartet, written in the anguished aftermath of his beloved sister’s death, refers in key and affect directly to this seminal Beethoven work.
The Dark, Coiled Intensity of f Minor
Bach Prelude in f minor from Book 2 of the Well-Tempered Clavier
Beethoven Quartet in f minor, Op. 95
Bruce Adolphe Coiled (inspired by Beethoven’s Op. 95) (2017)
Shostakovich Quartet No. 11 in f minor
Mendelssohn Quartet in f minor, Op. 80
The program starts with a Bach Prelude that introduces f minor as a key that admits little light, closed in and dense. In Op. 95 (“Serioso”), Beethoven wrote a work that is compact and brutal. When the Brentano Quartet approached Bruce Adolphe to write a work inspired by the Beethoven he answered immediately: “Opus 95: so many nuggets of genius: the unhinged rhythmic knots, the scales off the cliff's edge, the muttering, the gnashing of molars!” The result is his new work, “Coiled,” written for this program. That coiled intensity also informs Shostakovich’s Eleventh Quartet in f minor (Beethoven’s f minor is also his eleventh), that compressed, eloquent masterpiece. And it is no coincidence that Mendelssohn’s final quartet, written in the anguished aftermath of his beloved sister’s death, refers in key and affect directly to this seminal Beethoven work.
The Dark, Coiled Intensity of f Minor
Bach Prelude in f minor from Book 2 of the Well-Tempered Clavier
Beethoven Quartet in f minor, Op. 95
Bruce Adolphe Coiled (inspired by Beethoven’s Op. 95) (2017)
Shostakovich Quartet No. 11 in f minor
Mendelssohn Quartet in f minor, Op. 80
The program starts with a Bach Prelude that introduces f minor as a key that admits little light, closed in and dense. In Op. 95 (“Serioso”), Beethoven wrote a work that is compact and brutal. When the Brentano Quartet approached Bruce Adolphe to write a work inspired by the Beethoven he answered immediately: “Opus 95: so many nuggets of genius: the unhinged rhythmic knots, the scales off the cliff's edge, the muttering, the gnashing of molars!” The result is his new work, “Coiled,” written for this program. That coiled intensity also informs Shostakovich’s Eleventh Quartet in f minor (Beethoven’s f minor is also his eleventh), that compressed, eloquent masterpiece. And it is no coincidence that Mendelssohn’s final quartet, written in the anguished aftermath of his beloved sister’s death, refers in key and affect directly to this seminal Beethoven work.
The Dark, Coiled Intensity of f Minor
Bach Prelude in f minor from Book 2 of the Well-Tempered Clavier
Beethoven Quartet in f minor, Op. 95
Bruce Adolphe Coiled (inspired by Beethoven’s Op. 95) (2017)
Shostakovich Quartet No. 11 in f minor
Mendelssohn Quartet in f minor, Op. 80
The program starts with a Bach Prelude that introduces f minor as a key that admits little light, closed in and dense. In Op. 95 (“Serioso”), Beethoven wrote a work that is compact and brutal. When the Brentano Quartet approached Bruce Adolphe to write a work inspired by the Beethoven he answered immediately: “Opus 95: so many nuggets of genius: the unhinged rhythmic knots, the scales off the cliff's edge, the muttering, the gnashing of molars!” The result is his new work, “Coiled,” written for this program. That coiled intensity also informs Shostakovich’s Eleventh Quartet in f minor (Beethoven’s f minor is also his eleventh), that compressed, eloquent masterpiece. And it is no coincidence that Mendelssohn’s final quartet, written in the anguished aftermath of his beloved sister’s death, refers in key and affect directly to this seminal Beethoven work.
ROCO is honored to partner with the Holocaust Museum Houston marking the recent reopening of their expanded new building, for “We Were the Music” – a chamber concert featuring the world premieres of two ROCO commissions by Bruce Adolphe, part of his season triptych in tribute to women musicians of the Holocaust.
Dedicated to Holocaust survivors Anita Lasker-Wallfisch and Alice Herz-Sommer, We Were the Music and Music Is a Dream by Bruce Adolphe will be joined on the program by the music of Hindemith, Zemlinsky, Piazzolla, plus the world premiere of a rare, unpublished work by Italian composer and teacher Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. The premiere of the next commission in ROCO’s FIFteen Project, by Houston composer Isabelle Ganz, rounds out the evening.
Featured ROCO musicians will be founder, artistic director and principal oboist Alecia Lawyer; principal cellist Richard Belcher; and pianist Mei Rui.
Tickets can be purchased through the Rialto Theatre for this performance.
Off the Hook Arts presents the Brentano String Quartet as part of WinterFest 2020. Featuring music in F Minor by Bach, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Shostakovich plus the world premiere of Bruce Adolphe’s Coiled, based on Beethoven’s F Minor quartet “Serioso” Opus 95.
Since its inception in 1992, the Brentano String Quartet has appeared throughout the world to popular and critical acclaim. “Passionate, uninhibited and spellbinding,” raves the London Independent; the New York Times extols its “luxuriously warm sound [and] yearning lyricism.”
“The concert made it clear that these players could well be the best of the latest generation. Their level of individual technique was superb, while musical dialog necessary for rich chamber music was evident from first to last.” — Philadelphia Inquirer
Prelude in f minor from Book 2 of the Well-Tempered Clavier J. S. Bach (1685 – 1750)
String Quartet in f minor, Op. 95 Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827)
Coiled (inspired by Beethoven’s Op. 95) (2017) world premiere Bruce Adolphe (1955 – )
— Intermission —
String Quartet No. 11 in f minor Dimitri Shostakovich (1906 – 1975)
String Quartet in f minor, Op. 80 Felix Mendelssohn (1809 – 1847)
Program Note: The program starts with a Bach Prelude that introduces f minor as a key that admits little light, closed in and dense. In Op. 95 (“Serioso”), Beethoven wrote a work that is compact and brutal. When the Brentano Quartet approached Bruce Adolphe to write a work inspired by the Beethoven he answered immediately: “Opus 95: so many nuggets of genius: the unhinged rhythmic knots, the scales off the cliff’s edge, the muttering, the gnashing of molars!” The result is his new work, “Coiled,” written for this program.
That coiled intensity also informs Shostakovich’s Eleventh Quartet in f minor (Beethoven’s f minor is also his eleventh), that compressed, eloquent masterpiece. And it is no coincidence that Mendelssohn’s final quartet, written in the anguished aftermath of his beloved sister’s death, refers in key and affect directly to this seminal Beethoven work.
Tickets for this performance are available through the Rialto Theatre.
