Adolphe has composed music for Itzhak Perlman, Sylvia McNair, David Shifrin, the Beaux Arts Trio, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the National Symphony, the Caramoor Festival, St. Luke's Orchestra, the New York Chamber Symphony, the Metropolitan Opera Guild, the Brentano String Quartet, the Miami Quartet, David Finckel and Wu Han, and many others. His over fifty compositions include four operas and several theater pieces. He has been composer-in-residence at festivals throughout the United States, including the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, Music from Angel Fire, Bravo! Colorado, the Grand Canyon Festival, the Moab Festival, the Virginia Arts Festival, the Folger Shakespeare Theater in Washington, D.C., the Perlman Music Program, the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, Chamber Music Virginia, the O.K. Mozart Festival and SummerFest La Jolla. Recent performances of Adolphe's music have been presented by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Saint Louis Symphony, the Orlando Symphony, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, among others.

Formerly on the faculties of the Juilliard School and New York University and a Visiting Lecturer at Yale, Adolphe has been the lecturer of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 1992, and has been featured in nationally broadcast Live from Lincoln Center television programs and appears often on National Public Radio. In 2001, Adolphe gave a lecture series, Notes and Bolts: How Music Gets Written, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, in addition to the lecture series Inside Chamber Music, at Lincoln Center, which he has presented there since 1992. A prolific author, Adolphe's books include The Mind's Ear: Exercises for Improving the Musical Imagination, What to Listen for in the World, and Of Mozart, Parrots and Cherry Blossoms in the Wind: A Composer Explores Mysteries of the Musical Mind. Adolphe's music has been recorded on the Telarc, CRI, Delos, Koch, Summit and PollyRhythm labels. His film scores include the permanent documentary at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.

With Julian Fifer, Bruce Adolphe co-founded PollyRhythm Productions, a company devoted to the creation of educational repertoire and materials in a wide range of media for kids and their families. The company is named after Adolphe's opera-and-jazz-singing parrot, Polly Rhythm. Adolphe's compositions for children include Marita and Her Heart's Desire, recorded on Telarc with Itzhak Perlman and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; Little Red Riding Hood and Goldilocks, recorded with Dr. Ruth Westheimer; The Amazing Adventure of Alvin Allegretto, a comic opera written for the Metropolitan Opera Guild; Urban Scenes for Kids and String Quartet; Six Pieces for Kids and Orchestra; The Purple Palace, commissioned by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra; Tyrannosaurus Sue - A Cretaceous Concerto, written for the unveiling of the dinosaur at Chicago's Field Museum in May of 2000; Tough Turkey in the Big City, commissioned by The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; Carnival of the Creatures, the never anticipated, un-awaited for sequel to you know what; Red Dogs and Pink Skies: A Musical Celebration of Paul Gauguin, recorded on the PollyRhythm label, to be premiered at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in conjunction with a Gauguin exhibit; and Witches, Wizards, Spells, and Elves: The Magic of Shakespeare, commissioned by The Chicago Chamber Musicians for a collaboration with the Chicago Shakespeare Theater.

Bruce Adolphe lives in New York City with his wife, pianist Marija Stroke, their daughter Katja, and Polly Rhythm, the opera-and-jazz-singing parrot.

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