Bruce Adolphe Interview

Classical Domain:  I know from experience with my kids that your programs leave an impression long after the performance ends, it occurred to me, that after several years of Meet the Music there must be a generation of kids in New York and vicinity who carry a mental image of you, are you a local celebrity?

Bruce Adolphe:  I am recognized on the Upper West Side, children think I'm Inspector Pulse, it happens all the time.

CD:    Let's see, we could talk about your lectures for adults, your radio show and your compositions for orchestras and major chamber groups... but I'm here to ask you about a bird that's lost in a museum?

BA:    This show started with the Chicago Humanities Festival, have you ever heard of it? The city of Chicago has an amazing thing that no one outside of Chicago seems to know about, unless you happen have participated in it. It's been around for many years, they have two divisions: The Humanities Festival, which has art, science and social issues. Also the universities and the art museums, theater and music groups all participate throughout the city. It's really extraordinary.

The other division is the Children's Festival for the Humanities. I was very jealous that New York doesn't have anything like it. It lasts for about a week, it's huge.

Anyway, so they called me and said that they had hired the group Fulcrum Point, a New Music group, and they wanted me to do something for kids — and they were very specific about it. They said they wanted to commission me to write a work based on the book Time Flies, by a Chicago author Eric Rohman. The performance was to take place at The Field Museum, where I did, Tyrannosaurus Sue: A Cretaceous Concerto. Tyrannosaurus Sue was a big hit for the Museum, so they asked me to write a new piece that would be performed in at the Museum based on Time Flies, since the story takes place in a Natural History Museum.

This has never happened to me before, I've written lots of music for kids and they were always my idea, and a commission has just been to write something for kids, period.

I can't say I read Time Flies, as it doesn't have any words, but it has beautiful paintings. Eric Rohman has written many books, and his art is at such a high level that to look through one of his books is a great artistic experience. This is one thing I've thought about for many years, it's what’s missing in the music world, you have an occasional piece here and there by somebody, but there is not an on going series of compositions — like Eric Rohman's body of work as an illustrator. I want to do that for kids, high quality musical engagement for kids that's not trivial, that's challenging. So in that sense Time Flies was perfect. I was afraid when they said that they picked a book that it was going to be a little “kiddy book” and I wasn't going to want to do it. In fact the paintings are gorgeous, and it's exactly parallel to what I thought the music should do. So I agreed to do it right away.

Then I realized there was a big problem. You can go through the book in a few minutes, you can stare at it and discuss it and it might take you three or four minutes. But they wanted a twenty minute piece, for a large ensemble. So I wondered, since they were going to project the pictures, how do you make the music last twenty minutes when the book is only a few minutes long, while taking into account a child's interest level. So I gave up on the direct representation of the book.

CD:   So, no Ken Burns slow fade over the details of the images with mournful country music?

BA:    I figured unless I had a team of cinematographers there was no way to do this. Instead, I just wrote a parallel piece of music that just tells the story in music. When I was done I went back to the book and picked spots in the music where the pictures fit. It worked because sometimes you look at the picture for a long time and the music takes you deeper and lets your imagination go for quite some time, and then when it changes you think that something unbelievable has happened.

Now and then there's a little animation, someone who is a tech person in Chicago knew that with Power Point you could do a little animation, which is something that I had never seen. So all of a sudden after four or five pictures that are still, the bird flies — really flies. We were all completely shocked by this, and I thought, did you ask the author, if you could do this? They said no. I met Eric for the first time sharing a cab on the way to the final rehearsal, and I said, you know they've done some interesting things with your pictures, like — they move... and he said “fabulous,” so we were very lucky.

This will be extra special because besides me talking about the music, Eric is flying into New York and is taking part in the discussions before and after the performance. He is going to talk about painting and story telling without words, and what an illustrator does. We are going to talk about music and painting as ways of communicating without saying anything. The whole concert will be about that. The middle of the concert is the work Time Flies and the beginning and follow up will be about the uses of nonverbal communication.

CD:    Is the work a narrative or is it more illustrative of different scenes?

BA:    It is a narrative, you can really feel it. There is a little bird and it flies into the museum and gets trapped in there. What I like is that is seems to be the bird's imagination. Which is quite believable. I have a parrot, it will easily think things are terrifying and bizarre, it imagines all sorts of things that aren't happening. The little bird in the story thinks that these dinosaurs are real, even though they are skeletons. First you see them as they are, then you see them as the bird sees them all fleshed out and dangerous. The bird thinks they are attacking.

CD:    Is there any kind of transformative Tristan theme, or discriptive music as the bird's perception of the dinosaurs change?

BA:    There is actually. Everything comes from the music of the bird, because there is no one else alive in the story. There are dinosaur-like themes, but the thing you are referring to, which is there, is the transformation of the main theme throughout the piece.

At the beginning the bird flies in, the theme is delicate, quiet and moody. The bird flies in from the dark night, there is thunder and lightning in the book, so that was a good musical thing. This gets transformed, into the main theme of the entire piece. With the dinosaurs apppear the theme sounds terrified, at some points the trombone and the winds are playing horrible, scary versions of the music, very independent, like creatures screaming and fighting; because that's what the bird sees. The ensemble has fourteen instruments so it's really colorful.

At the same time the bird is always there, played by the violin, flying and hovering above the creatures. The theme gets split into counterpoint, all these things happen to the theme. At the end the theme goes back to being the bird's music as the bird flies out the window. So there's a huge transformation, in the work, but it's in the bird's imagination.

CD:    But it's not formally laid out like a theme and variations?

BA:    No, it follows the narrative flow of the book. There is an arc, the fear is in the middle section of the story, there is some humor in the fear, because I knew it was for kids, the music captures this. The illustrations capture the drama of this, as well as humor, in the faces of the dinosaurs. At the end the bird is flying around inside the dinosaur skeletons and has realized that everything is fine.

CD:    Did you have to think about reworking visual clues in musical terms?

BA:    I don't know if I would have thought of doing this book as a piece of music, the book is very self-contained, it's an excellent experience. I stared at the paintings a long time, and I just decided to create the same thing in the music and not worry about supporting the paintings. The paintings gave me a lot of ideas, they've got lots of things in them: thunder and lightning, emotional states that transform. All the creatures that suggest different instruments, large scary things that could be the low brass for instance. Then there's flight, flight is great in music, it's so natural, and you can do great things with it.

CD:   The bird is represented by the violin?

BA:    I thought maybe it would be a flute for a while, then I thought it was too obvious, and I thought I could not take it as far emotionally. I started to see it as a DVD some day. That's where I'm headed. People from Random House, who published Time Flies, are coming to the performance, so there may be something more to his project.

CD:   I saw one of your last large ensemble pieces Oceanophony, as an adult listener I thought it was great.

BA:    Thanks. Oceanophony, and particularly Time Flies are really complex pieces of music, I never write down to children. If this were done in a new music concert and you didn't know anything about the book it would be fine. Kids are great New Music listeners. They listen very openly. If there is a narrative flow it makes it easier for them, but that's it, that's about all they need. If it has dramatic energy, and lots of color they're going to be there.

CD:    Tell me, how did you get the All Star Band?

BA:    Well, we pay.... actually almost everyone is part of the Chamber Music Society, a lot are Chamber Music Society Two, or were part of Chamber Music Society Two. That program, Chamber Music Society Two, the young artists in residence is so huge, and the talent level is so high, that when we reject people we often reject spectacular musicians. What's interesting is that we often hire them anyway, we just can't include them in the CMS2 program that year. Some of these musicians are among the ensemble.

Some years we might take four violinists, we'll hear 20 violinists and twelve are fabulous, it makes choosing very difficult. We hear wind players who are great sometimes and it ends up that no wind players were selected because there were so many fabulous pianists that the wind players didn’t get the consideration they deserve. New York is full of great players.

CD:    I hear so many good young musicians, and I know I'm going to have to wait decades to see what they mature into. You have some people who hit the scene fast, but we don't know what the potential for real contributions will be?

BA:    Though, it's fun to work with them before it happens. and sometimes it does happen fast. Colon Jacobson, for instance, he's a violinist. I've known him since he was five, and he's playing the Brahms Double Concerto with Yo Yo Ma at the New York Philharmonic in May. He's been impressive for a long time.

Then there are people that you are glad have come into their own, like Harumi Rhodes, who is the daughter of Sam Rhodes, of the Juilliard Quartet. I remember when she auditioned for us, every single judge, every musician in the room knew her, and had know her for a long time. People were thinking poor Harumi, this is so unfair, she has grown up with these people, but she played so brilliantly everyone was relieved and happy. Turns out she's fabulous, and could deal with the pressure, so we were lucky.

CD:    What else do you have going on?

BA:    I have quite a few things going on. I have this company Pollyrhythm Productions, for my family pieces, as with Time Flies I'll fold in one of my family pieces for the Meet the Music series. I'm more and more moving towards writing pieces that also have a social message, if possible. I've just finished a piece on wind energy conservation called Zephyronia. The story is by Louise Gikow, we have written several things together like Tough Turkey in the Big City. Louise used to write for Jim Henson and has written a lot of other children’s books. It's written for the the Imani Winds, who are part of the Chamber Music Society Two program, they asked me to write a family piece for them. The wind players will play the characters, they'll play and act. I have also another version for one actor as well, but the Imani can pull it off.

I've got another piece that is being premiered by Musica Viva in Boston, that will come to New York. I've also finished another work based on the children's book The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses by Paul Goble.

CD:   I usually like to end with a dumb non sequitur question to finish the interview, but I don't have one for you.... hmmm.... Arthur Fiedler or Mitch Miller best all-audience kind of person.....?

BA:    I know Mitch Miller really well.... he's almost 90 now he was a fine oboe player and a good conductor, I went to many dinner parties he hosted in Chinatown.

When I grew up I didn't pay attention to Arthur Fiedler or Mitch Miller, I was totally hooked on Leonard Bernstein  and Victor Borge. The three people that have influenced me the most are Victor Borge, Leonard Bernstein, and Danny Kaye.

CD:    Thanks Bruce, it's been a pleasure. I'm going to be at the concert, I'll have to feed my next line of questions to the child sitting next to me. You never pick me when I raise my hand, no matter how much I wave my arm back and forth......