Introduction

Summary

“Stories from a Composer's Life” is the subtitle of Samuel Adler's autobiography. And a storyteller he is. The project of “rescuing” the stories from oral transmission and jotting them down for eventual publication in a book originated in the mid-1980s with Sam sitting at the family table and relating his stories as a tape recorder captured them. (The transcribed tapes served, thirty years later, to trigger his memories and bring the project to a conclusion.) The stories are full of humor and contain touches of irony; they show an awareness of human foibles, including his own, and are told with understanding and tolerance. And occasionally, the stories capture poignant, even traumatic, moments in history from a personal perspective—e.g., Dallas, Texas in November 1963 and New York City in September 2001 (and Adler is nearby in both instances). As a ten-year-old boy he witnessed the atrocities committed during Reichskristallnacht in November 1938 in his native Mannheim. Two months later, the same boy, with a fearful look in his eyes, arrived in New York City on the S.S. Manhattan with the Statue of Liberty in the background heralding the prospects of a new and promising life. And what a life it has become!: a life lived in ever-widening concentric circles; a life focused on building music's empire through teaching, composing, lecturing, and writing; a life devoted to nurturing friendships with musicians and other artists all over the world; and indeed the stories here are intertwined with the protagonist's travels across the United States, Europe, and, in later years, South America and Asia. Adler's life story is an example of how much a society is enriched by welcoming foreigners and giving them a chance at a new beginning.

The stories related in Building Bridges with Music are only a selection from a rich repertory of tales and anecdotes that could have been told as well. Chances are that a meeting with Sam Adler, when he is in the storytelling mood, will result in a whole set of additional tales, to be inserted in the narrative that here is making it into print. The autobiographical stories are followed by several appendixes: two essays central to Adler's activities as a composer and an interview about the teaching of composition as well as a list of his students at North Texas, Eastman, Juilliard, Bowdoin, and, most recently, the Berlin Academy.