Harmonic Sensibility: A Look at Ravel's Piano Works
Wed, Nov 12, 2025, 6:30 pm
Daniel and Joanna S. Rose Studio at CMS
1 hour 15 minutes, no intermission
Join distinguished composer and public radio personality Bruce Adolphe for investigations and insights into masterworks performed during the Alice Tully Hall season. Inside Chamber Music lectures are beloved by regulars and a revelation to first timers for their depth, accessibility and brilliance.
Each lecture is supported by live performance excerpts from the featured work.
Program
Maurice Ravel
(1875–1937)Valses nobles et sentimentales for Piano
(1911-12)Maurice Ravel
(1875–1937)Miroirs for Piano
(1904–05)Maurice Ravel
(1875–1937)Sonatine for Piano
(1903-05)
Bruce Adolphe
Michael Stephen Brown
Resident lecturer and director of family concerts for CMS since 1992, Bruce Adolphe is a composer of international renown, much of whose output addresses science, history, and the struggle for human rights.
Resident lecturer and director of family concerts for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 1992, Bruce Adolphe is a composer of international renown, much of whose output addresses science, history, and the struggle for human rights. His works are frequently performed by major artists, including Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Fabio Luisi, Joshua Bell, Daniel Hope, Angel Blue, the Brentano String Quartet, the Washington National Opera, the Metropolitan Opera Guild, the Human Rights Orchestra of Europe, and over 60 orchestras worldwide. Among his most performed works are the violin concerto I Will Not Remain Silent, the violin/piano duo Einstein’s Light, and Tyrannosaurus Sue: A Cretaceous Concerto.
Michael Stephen Brown is a composer and pianist hailed by the New York Times as “one of the leading figures in the current renaissance of performer-composers.” The 2026 Andrew Wolf Award Winner and a recent fellow at both MacDowell and Yaddo, he is also a recipient of Lincoln Center’s Emerging Artist Award and an Avery Fisher Career Grant. Brown performs internationally and receives commissions from orchestras, soloists, and festivals around the world. Recent highlights include a recital at Alice Tully Hall for CMS, and collaborations with cellist Nicholas Canellakis and violinists Pinchas Zukerman, Kristin Lee, and Arnaud Sussmann. He is currently composing The Carnival of Endangered Wonders, a CMS-led project co-presented by a consortium of US presenters. His first album devoted entirely to his music, Twelve Blocks, will be released in February 2026. Brown is also composing the score for Angeline Gragasin’s upcoming film Look But Don’t Touch and lives in New York City with his two 19th-century Steinways, Octavia and Daria.
