(Turn screen horizontal to read what Itzhak Perlman, Fred Child, Alan Gilbert, and others have to say about Bruce.)

Whether it’s about neuroscience, human rights, nightmares, or dinosaurs, Bruce Adolphe’s music “excites the ear and the mind.” In his work as composer, author, lecturer, and performer, Bruce seeks to connect disparate ideas and disciplines, and to build community by exploring diverse manifestations of human creativity.

Known to millions of Americans as the Piano Puzzler on American Public Media’s Performance Today, Bruce is also the resident lecturer and director of family concerts for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; composer-in-residence at the Brain and Creativity Institute; founding creative director of The Learning Maestros; artistic director of Off the Hook Arts Festival; and the author of several books on music.

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Latest News

• The world premiere of Dreaming and Thinking for piano, string quartet, and double bass, was performed in Porto, Portugal, at the Teatro Nacional. Bruce gave a pre-concert talk that combined a discussion of Dreaming and Thinking and ideas from his new book Visions and Decisions (Cambridge, 2023).

• Mobile Opera performed Let Freedom Sing: the story of Marian Anderson in February 2023. The one-act opera has a libretto by Carolivia Herron. It was directed and conducted by Scott Wright with Allanda Small as Marian Anderson.

• Bruce will be a visiting lecturer at Oxford University in January 2024 and will present workshops on creativity and imagination in connection with his new book Visions and Decisions (Cambridge, 2023).

• The third edition of The Mind’s Ear: Exercises for Improving the Musical Imagination for Performers, Composers, and Listeners is available, published by Oxford University Press. The New Third Edition offers 34 new exercises inspired by improv comedy, hip-hop sampling and loops, robots and AI, and Bruce’s widely popular Piano Puzzler series. Amazon

• Secrets of Creativity: What Neuroscience, the Arts, and Our Minds Reveal, was published by Oxford University Press on September 23, 2019, has a chapter by Bruce Adolphe called The Musical Imagination: Mystery and Method in Musical Composition. OUP