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 JAMES
ADLER
www.adleroaksmusic.com
A pianist who “can create whatever type of music he wants at the keyboard” (Chicago Sun-Times) and a composer who writes “with uncommon imagination” (Atlanta Journal-Constitution), James Adler returns this season to the Yamaha Piano Salon in New York City for a program emphasizing both of his talents. The concert includes his Reflections upon a September morn with poetry by Walt Whitman; Reverie, Interrupted, for tenor saxophone and piano; and piano works of Somary, Adler, and Liszt. Reverie, Interrupted, premiered last season at the Manhattan School of Music, is also featured this season on a new recording from PARMA Recordings.
James Adler’s CD, “James Adler Plays Syncopated Rhythms” was released in April 2008 by Albany Records. “It is a virtuosic affair, brilliantly played... The centerpiece is the stunning transcription of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue (complete, including all the cadenzas)” (Turok’s Choice, September 2008) -- a piece he has performed extensively, including for an audience of 50,000 at Chicago’s Grant Park Concerts, and from New York’s Paramount Theatre, to the Dimitria Festival in Thessoloniki Greece, to the French Woods Festival of the Performing Arts in New York.
Mr. Adler’s extensive list of compositions is headed by Memento mori: An AIDS Requiem. The work premiered in Atlanta in 1996 and has been performed from New York City (Johannes Somary, conducting) to Tallinn, Estonia (under the baton of Ants Soots) to San Francisco (directed by Grammy-award winner Joseph Jennings). Memento mori features a “range of expression [that] is expansive” and is “a unique, well-crafted, emotionally rich piece” (American Record Guide). Four octavos from Memento mori are available through Subito Music; the entire work is represented by European American Music.
Audiophiles can enjoy Mr. Adler’s music on the premiere recording of Memento mori by the AmorArtis Chorale and Orchestra under the direction of Mr. Somary. Following the West Coast premiere, this disc (released worldwide by Albany Records) was the #1 uniquely selling CD in San Francisco on amazon.com. Other recordings of his music include Metropolitan Opera mezzo-soprano Victoria Livengood, a soloist on the Albany recording, presenting the requiem’s Pie Jesu on her disc “We Gather Together.” Nicholas Underhill’s CD “Light and Sirius” features Mr. Adler’s 3 Piano Transitions, which Gramophone (January 2008) noted “spins appealing variations on the venerable forms of passacaglia, prelude and toccata before immersing itself in spicy and ebullient Caribbean-influenced dances.”
Other compositions by Mr. Adler include Allegro Scherzando for symphonic band and piano, which premiered in 2009 at Symphony Space (New York City); On the Rebound, premiered by the Gregg Smith Singers; the often-performed Carols of Splendour, which premiered at Carnegie Hall; It’s Gotta Be America, commissioned and performed for the Centennial Celebration of the Statue of Liberty; and Canticle For Peace, written and performed for the opening of the 43rd session of the United Nations General Assembly. Mr. Adler is the composer of Concerto in G for Piano and Orchestra, the children’s “pOpera” Herbie and Carnie: A Dinosaga, the Classic Rag-time Suite for orchestra, numerous solo, chamber, and choral works, and the award-winning film score for The Hat Act.
Mr. Adler made his orchestral performing debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and has appeared in recital on the Orchestra’s Allied Arts Piano Series. Other highlights include appearances on the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts Series at the Chicago Cultural Center; featured soloist performances at Alice Tully Hall; and a special London orchestral performance at the Royal Albert Hall, broadcast by the BBC.
A native of Chicago, James Adler is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. A member of the Fine Arts Department faculty at Saint Peter’s College (where he has also served as choral director), he has adjudicated at national and international music competitions and is the recipient of an award from ASCAP for outstanding composition achievement each year since 1978. He has received grants from Meet The Composer and from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and he is a laureate in Who’s Who in American Music and the International Who’s Who in Music.
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