Memory Believes (a requiem), composed in memory of his brother Jonathan Adolphe, was premiered by the Antioch Chamber Choir and the Brentano String Quartet in the Parlance Chamber Concerts series, December 3, 2023. The text of the work includes the writings of Emily Dickinson, Ethan Canin, and William Faulkner. Adolphe reflects, “Like music, my brother’s paintings, especially his last ones, inhabit a spectral topography of texture and space, where memories, some that we shared but many more forgotten, can exist as gestures that can be believed, and that will endure longer than their sources can possibly be recalled or known. We can only wonder.”
Lot’s Wives, set to a poem by Pireeni Sundaralingam, is scored for SATB chorus and solo cello. Its premiere was given on February 3, 2024 by the Chapel Choir of University College in Oxford, England, under the direction of Giles Underwood with cellist Richard Tunnicliffe performing the solo.
Commissioned by violinist Daniel Hope, The King, the Cat, and the Fiddle was premiered by him with the Zürich Chamber Orchestra. The U.S. premiere was presented by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in Alice Tully Hall on April 14, 2024.
Tough Turkey in the Big City is a comic theater chamber piece with a text by Louise Gikow. The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center gave the first performance on November 10, 2024 in Alice Tully Hall as part of the Meet the Music! family concert series. Bruce was the narrator and pianist in the sextet.
Two works featuring a narrator were performed at Alice Tully Hall for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Family Programming series in the spring of 2023. “The two longest works on the program were both written and narrated by Adolphe himself and were brilliant pieces of music: The Nightingale for violin and narrator, performed dazzlingly by Kelly Hall-Tompkins, and Little Red Riding Hood for mixed ensemble and narrator.” (Hollingsworth, Leah. “Adventures in Family Programming for String Music Lovers in New York City.” Strings Magazine. String Letter Publishing, Inc., 2025.)
Bruce Adolphe’s new book, Visions and Decisions: Imagination and Technique in Music Composition, was published in February 2024 by Cambridge University Press as part of the Cambridge Elements in Creativity and Imagination series.
Additional new titles include Thakla for String Octet (which will be given its premiere on June 2, 2025 by Accordo), In the Same Breath for woodwind quintet, Couple for viola and piano, and What I Tell My Piano: Six Pieces Inspired by Quotes about Pianos.
Memory Believes premiere information
Memory Believes performance video