Neely Bruce

(Frank) Neely Bruce (born January 21, 1944) is an American composer, conductor, pianist, and scholar of American music. He is the composer of over 800 works including three full-length operas.[1] Currently, he is John Spencer Camp Professor of Music and American Studies at Wesleyan University, where he has taught since 1974.[2]

Life and career

Bruce's undergraduate degree is from the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. His DMA is from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Bruce also received an MAA from Wesleyan University and an MMU from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His principal teachers were Ben Johnston, Hubert Kessler, J. F. Goossen, Lara Hoggard, Charles Hamm, Byrnell Figler, Roy McAllister, Soulima Stravinsky and Sophia Rosoff. Bruce was one of the seven keyboard players in the 1969 premiere of John Cage's HPSCHD. He has been visiting professor and artist-in-residence at Middlebury College, Bucknell University, the University of Michigan, and at Brooklyn College. He was the chorus director for the now defunct Connecticut Opera, and is director of music at South Congregational Church in Middletown, Connecticut.

He is the first pianist ever to play the entire song oeuvre of Charles Ives, which he performed with several singers as part of the Ives Vocal Marathon.

Works

Bruce has written over 800 works including three full length operas, choral works in all major genres, orchestral works, chamber music, a voluminous quantity of piano music, and music for mixed media, including seven documentary scores for public television.[3][4] He has also written a variety of music for young people, including a new adaptation of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale Hansel and Gretel, which uses American popular music, such as rock and roll, pop, and rap.

Circular 14: The Apotheosis of Aristides

Bruce's two hour oratorio 'Circular 14: The Apotheosis of Aristides, for eight soloists, two choruses and large orchestra' received its first full scale production in Salt Lake City on January 27, 2018. An early version, orchestrated for chamber music forces, was premiered in Los Angeles on January 24, 2016. About the performance Eric Gordon writes: Circular 14 contains music of great variety and often unearthly transcendence...One can compare it to the great masterpieces in this form."[5]

References

  1. ↑ http://sousamendesfoundation.org/circular-14-the-apotheosis-of-aristides-an-oratorio/
  2. ↑ https://www.wesleyan.edu/academics/faculty/nbruce/profile.html
  3. ↑ http://sousamendesfoundation.org/circular-14-the-apotheosis-of-aristides-an-oratorio/
  4. ↑ http://www.wesleyan.edu/academics/faculty/nbruce/profile.html
  5. ↑ http://www.peoplesworld.org/article/singing-the-praises-of-a-portuguese-holocaust-hero/


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