A
composer, author, educator and performer, BRUCE ADOLPHE is the Music and
Education Advisor for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, founding
creative director of PollyRhythm Productions, and the comic keyboard quiz-master
of NPR’s Piano Puzzlers. Formerly on the faculties of the Juilliard School and
New York University and a Visiting Lecturer at Yale, Adolphe has been the
lecturer of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 1992, and has been
featured in nationally broadcast Live from Lincoln Center television programs.
In addition to his lecture series, Inside Chamber Music, at Lincoln Center,
Adolphe has been a featured lecturer since 2001 at the Metropolitan Museum of
Art in New York, where his series is called A Composer’s View. Since January,
2002, Adolphe appears weekly on National Public Radio in his own comic Classical
call-in quiz show, Piano Puzzlers, where he plays well-known tunes disguised as
works by famous composers. For the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center,
Bruce Adolphe created the sold-out family concert series Meet the Music! Since
1993, Adolphe has appeared regularly as the host of these concerts, and also as
characters ranging from “private ear’ Inspector Pulse to Schubert’s brother
Ferdinand to Igor Stravinsky. Bruce’s many compositions for young listeners have
often been premiered on this series before being performed throughout the United
States and around the world. With Julian Fifer, Bruce Adolphe co-founded
PollyRhythm Productions, a company devoted to the creation of music, books,
scripts, and games linking musical concepts to science, art, history, and daily
life. The company is named after Adolphe's opera-and-jazz-singing parrot, Polly
Rhythm. Adolphe’s compositions for young people include Marita and Her Heart’s
Desire, recorded on Telarc with Itzhak Perlman and the Chamber Music Society of
Lincoln Center; Little Red Riding Hood and Goldilocks, recorded with Dr. Ruth
Westheimer; The Amazing Adventure of Alvin Allegretto, a comic opera written for
the Metropolitan Opera Guild; Urban Scenes for Kids and String Quartet; The
Purple Palace, commissioned by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra; Tyrannosaurus Sue
– A Cretaceous Concerto, written for the unveiling of the dinosaur at Chicago’s
Field Museum in May of 2000; Tough Turkey in the Big City, commissioned by The
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; Carnival of the Creatures, the never
anticipated, un-awaited for sequel to you know what; Red Dogs and Pink Skies: A
Musical Celebration of Paul Gauguin, recorded on the PollyRhythm label; Witches,
Wizards, Spells, and Elves: The Magic of Shakespeare, commissioned by The
Chicago Chamber Musicians for a collaboration with the Chicago Shakespeare
Theater; and Oceanophony, with poems by Kate Light, commissioned by The La Jolla
Music Society in conjunction with the 100th Anniversary of the Scripps Institute
of Oceanography. This last work was premiered in August 2003, at the Birch
Aquarium of the Scripps Institute. Adolphe’s works for young people have been
performed throughout the world by such orchestras and ensembles as the Los
Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Saint Louis
Symphony, the Orlando Symphony, and ensembles and orchestras in Europe and
Australia. Adolphe has also composed music for Itzhak Perlman, Sylvia McNair,
the Beaux Arts Trio, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the National Symphony, the
Caramoor Festival, St. Luke’s Orchestra, the New York Chamber Symphony, the
Metropolitan Opera Guild, the Brentano String Quartet, the Miami Quartet, David
Finckel and Wu Han, and many others. His many compositions include four operas
and several theater pieces. He has been composer-in-residence at festivals
throughout the United States, including the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival,
Chamber Music Northwest, Music from Angel Fire, Bravo! Colorado, the Grand
Canyon Festival, the Moab Festival, the Virginia Arts Festival, the Folger
Shakespeare Theater in Washington, D.C., the Perlman Music Program, the
Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, Chamber Music Virginia, the O.K. Mozart
Festival and SummerFest La Jolla. Adolphe has written three books on music: The
Mind's Ear: Exercises for Improving the Musical Imagination; What to Listen for
in the World; and Of Mozart, Parrots and Cherry Blossoms in the Wind: A Composer
Explores Mysteries of the Musical Mind. Adolphe’s music has been recorded on the
Telarc, CRI, Delos, Koch, Summit and PollyRhythm labels. His film scores include
the permanent documentary at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.