Bruce Adolphe

Background

About Bruce Adolphe

The 2025-26 season marks my 33rd year with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, where I am resident lecturer (Inside Chamber Music lecture series) and director of family concerts. The lectures are live-streamed and then archived on the CMS website and on YouTube. The family concerts are archived on the CMS website. 2025 is my 23rd year writing and performing as the Piano Puzzler on Performance Today (PT), hosted by Fred Child for American Public Media. PT and the piano puzzlers are available as podcasts and are archived on Your Classical (American Public Media), Apple Music, Spotify, and other platforms. My books include Dreaming and Thinking in Music: Exercises for Exploring Inspiration and Imagination in Musical Creativity (Oxford, 2025); Visions and Decisions: Imagination and Technique in Music Composition (Cambridge, 2024), The Mind's Ear: Exercises to Improve the Musical Imagination for Performers, Composers, and Listeners (third ed, Oxford, 2021). Earlier books include What to Listen for in the World (poetic musings),(Limelight, 1996, now Bloomsbury); Of Mozart, Parrots, and Cherry Blossoms in the Wind (Limelight, now Bloomsbury). I have twice been a fellow of the Salzburg Global Seminar, Visiting Lecturer in the Residential Colleges at Yale, faculty of NYU Tisch School of the Arts and the Juilliard School. See my website https://bruceadolphe.net/ for more information about my compositions, other books, recordings, and activities.