Neely Bruce Professor of Music and American Studies at Wesleyan University

Wesleyan University

Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts college founded in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut. According to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Wesleyan is the only Baccalaureate College in the nation that emphasizes undergraduate instruction in the arts and...

, is a composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

, conductor

Conducting

Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...

, pianist

Pianist

A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...

 and scholar of American music.http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/31/arts/music/31spoleto.htmlhttp://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/Spoletobuzz/archives/2010/06/04/neely-bruce-schools-us-in-modern-music

Bruce's undergraduate degree is from the University of Alabama

University of Alabama

The University of Alabama is a public coeducational university located in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, United States....

 at Tuscaloosa

Tuscaloosa, Alabama

Tuscaloosa is a city in and the seat of Tuscaloosa County in west central Alabama . Located on the Black Warrior River, it is the fifth-largest city in Alabama, with a population of 90,468 in 2010...

. His DMA

DMA

DMA can refer to:* DMA , a defunct dance music magazine* Dallas Museum of Art, an art museum in Texas, USA* Danish Music Awards, an award show held in Denmark since 1989...

 is from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...

. Bruce also received an MAA from Wesleyan University and an MMU from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.https://wesep.wesleyan.edu/cgi-perl/faculty/faculty_page/faculty_page.cgi/?faculty=nbruce His principal teachers were Ben Johnston, Hubert Kessler, J. F. Goossen, Lara Hoggard, Charles Hamm

Charles Hamm

Charles Hamm was an American musicologist, writer on music, composer, and music educator. He is credited with being the first music historian to seriously study and write about American popular music. Zachary Woolfe wrote in The New York Times that "Mr...

, Byrnell Figler, Roy McAllister, Soulima Stravinsky

Soulima Stravinsky

Sviatoslav Soulima Stravinsky was a Swiss-American pianist, composer and musicologist of Russian and Ukrainian descent...

 and Sophia Rosoff

Sophia Rosoff

Sophia Rosoff is an American pianist and educator, and a founder of the Abby Whiteside Foundation.She was a co-editor of the reprinted collection of Abby Whiteside's writings, along with Joseph Prostakoff....

. Bruce was one of the seven keyboard players in the 1969 premiere of John Cage

John Cage

John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...

's HPSCHD

HPSCHD

HPSCHD is a composition for harpsichord and computer-generated sounds by American avant-garde composers John Cage and Lejaren Hiller...

. He has been visiting professor and artist-in-residence at Middlebury College

Middlebury College

Middlebury College is a private liberal arts college located in Middlebury, Vermont, USA. Founded in 1800, it is one of the oldest liberal arts colleges in the United States. Drawing 2,400 undergraduates from all 50 United States and over 70 countries, Middlebury offers 44 majors in the arts,...

, Bucknell University

Bucknell University

Bucknell University is a private liberal arts university located alongside the West Branch Susquehanna River in the rolling countryside of Central Pennsylvania in the town of Lewisburg, 30 miles southeast of Williamsport and 60 miles north of Harrisburg. The university consists of the College of...

, the University of Michigan

University of Michigan

The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...

, and at Brooklyn College

Brooklyn College

Brooklyn College is a senior college of the City University of New York, located in Brooklyn, New York, United States.Established in 1930 by the New York City Board of Higher Education, the College had its beginnings as the Downtown Brooklyn branches of Hunter College and the City College of New...

. He is the chorus director for Connecticut Opera

Connecticut Opera

Connecticut Opera was a professional, non-profit, opera company based in Hartford, Connecticut, and a member of OPERA America. The company presented three fully staged opera productions during an annual season. It was founded in 1942 under the directorship of Frank Pandolfi and was the sixth oldest...

, and director of music at South Congregational Church

South Congregational Church

South Congregational Church can refer to:Churches on the National Register of Historic Places:* South Congregational Church * South Congregational Church...

 in Middletown, Connecticut

Middletown, Connecticut

Middletown is a city located in Middlesex County, Connecticut, along the Connecticut River, in the central part of the state, 16 miles south of Hartford. In 1650, it was incorporated as a town under its original Indian name, Mattabeseck. It received its present name in 1653. In 1784, the central...

.

He is the first pianist ever to play the entire song oeuvre of Charles Ives

Charles Ives

Charles Edward Ives was an American modernist composer. He is one of the first American composers of international renown, though Ives' music was largely ignored during his life, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. Over time, Ives came to be regarded as an "American Original"...

, which he performed with several singers as part of the Ives Vocal Marathon.

He also produced a new adaptation of the Brothers Grimm

Brothers Grimm

The Brothers Grimm , Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm , were German academics, linguists, cultural researchers, and authors who collected folklore and published several collections of it as Grimm's Fairy Tales, which became very popular...

 fairy tale Hansel and Gretel

Hansel and Gretel

"Hansel and Gretel" is a well-known fairy tale of German origin, recorded by the Brothers Grimm and published in 1812. Hansel and Gretel are a young brother and sister threatened by a cannibalistic hag living deep in the forest in a house constructed of cake and confectionery. The two children...

, which uses American popular music, such as rock and roll

Rock and roll

Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...

, pop

Pop music

Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

, and rap

Rapping

Rapping refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics". The art form can be broken down into different components, as in the book How to Rap where it is separated into “content”, “flow” , and “delivery”...

.

External links

• official website
• ReadTheTattoo.com stories about Neely Bruce
• A Plague on all our houses! Neely Bruce has seen the future, and it sucks. A page devoted to Bruce's rock cantata, The Plague, based on the Fourth Horseman.