Composer Bruce Adolphe is back in central Arkansas this week, finishing, more or less, something he started in October.
Adolphe was at the University of Central Arkansas on Oct. 3 for the world premiere of his Mary Cassatt: Scenes From Her Life for string quartet, inspired by Mary Cassatt paintings in the collection of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville. The UCA College of Fine Arts and Communication commissioned the piece and the composer dedicated it to the Cassatt Quartet, which performed it.
This week, Adolphe, composer-in-residence at the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California and best known as the creator and performer of the “Piano Puzzler” on public radio’s Performance Today, will return Wednesday to UCA, 201 Donaghey Ave., Conway.
“I’ll be doing some public lectures, some teaching, rehearsals for the concerts and a fundraiser, all in three days,” says Adolphe of his second visit here in six months.
“The way the residency was set up is not terribly unusual, two visits in a school year. Sometimes to go down and do a little bit, maybe a concert or two, and then come back and do some teaching and more concerts. And that’s exactly what we’re doing.”
Adolphe will be working with UCA faculty members who will give a recital of his works at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in the Recital Hall of the university’s Snow Fine Arts Center. (Admission is free.)
And his residency will culminate in one or more “Piano Puzzlers” on Friday during a sit-down dinner on the stage of the Donald W. Reynolds Performance Hall, the second part of the college’s biennial Bravo! fundraiser. The college is raising money to fund music students’ travel to professional conferences, competitions and workshops in the United States and abroad.
This year’s gala will start with a meet-and-greet reception with Adolphe at 5:30 p.m. Friday at the home of Brad and Suzanne Banister, 2600 Adamsbrook Drive, Conway, sponsored by the Table Mesa restaurant. The dinner and private concert, including Adolphe’s “puzzlers” and four UCA faculty members playing a movement from Adolphe’s Mary Cassatt quartet, will start at 7 p.m.
Tickets are $100. There is a limit of 100 people. Call (501) 450-3293 or email Joshua Miller at jdmiller@uca.edu. More information is available online at uca.edu/cfac/bravo.
The “Piano Puzzler,” which Adolphe has been doing for a dozen years in collaboration with Performance Today host Fred Child (“I never know what they’re playing because I record them pretty far in advance,” he admits), involves recasting a popular song, a bit of folk music or even a classical piece into the style of a particular classical composer.
He also plays his handiwork during the American Public Radio show’s Wednesday broadcasts for listeners who call and must identify the original tune and the composer. For example, a recent New Mexican successfully picked out “If I Only Had a Brain” from The Wizard of Oz that Adolphe had redone in the style of Johann Sebastian Bach. (Test your own musical knowledge at tinyurl.com/kdybsa9. The show airs at 9 a.m. weekdays on KLRE-FM, 90.5, in Little Rock; KUAF-FM, 91.3, in Fayetteville; KASU-FM, 91.9, in Jonesboro; and KBSA-FM, 90.9, in El Dorado.)
Adolphe says he never expected to become a musical humorist, “But it happened very naturally.
“My interest in music was first, when I was very young, to be a composer. But my original inspirations did include [humorist] Victor Borge. When I was a kid, mymost inspiring real people out there in the music world were Leonard Bernstein, Victor Borge and I guess [Igor] Stravinsky.”
It helps folks to take classical music less seriously, and “It’s an easy, fun way to learn things,” he adds. “Subversive education. Because people who pay attention to the puzzlers are actually getting quite a lot of information about the composers over the period, and I always think really good teaching should be fun and interesting and not always so deadly serious.”
Adolphe has also been the resident lecturer and director of family concerts for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 1992 and is the founding creative director of The Learning Maestros. He is the author of three books on music, including The Mind’s Ear: Exercises for Improving the Musical Imagination for Performers, Listeners, and Composers (Oxford University Press). He has taught at Yale, the Juilliard School and New York University.
The program for Thursday’s recital includes four movements of The Tiger’s Ear, inspired by abstract Impressionist paintings, with UCA faculty members Carolyn Brown, flute; Lorraine Duso, oboe; Linda Hsu, violin; Tatiana Kotcherguina, viola; Carl Anthony, piano; and Stephen Feldman, cello; playing segments named for painters Barnett Newman, Clyfford Still, Mark Rothko and Willem De Kooning, respectively.
Feldman and two percussionists will play at least two movements of Self Comes to Mind, which Adolphe wrote for cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Kelly Johnson, clarinet; Barron Weir, bass; and Blake Tyson, percussion, will join Brown and Hsu for Red Dogs and Pink Skies, inspired by the paintings of Paul Gauguin.
Also on Thursday, Bruce will work with music theory and music appreciation students, coach some of the student chamber music groups and do a large-scale afternoon presentation relating to The Mind’s Ear.
On Friday he’ll have additional meetings with students, including with student composers.
Style, Pages 29 on 03/18/2014