Julia Adolphe (born 1988)
Julia Adolphe was born in New York City. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Cornell, and a Masters of Music in composition from the USC Thornton School of Music.
Julia Adolphe has composed music for orchestra, chamber ensembles, choruses, solo instruments, and voice. Here is her 2014 string quartet Veil of Leaves which she describes like this:
Veil of Leaves overlaps two mirroring processes: the diverging and merging of musical voices. At first, a single melody unwinds, drifting slowly apart as the music twists and turns. In the wake of this unfolding line remains a fading harmony; the string unisons diverge leaving a swirl of pitches. Like the veins of a leaf, the music branches outward, forming a web of interweaving voices. Two and four-part contrapuntal lines arise from the texture as the melody sounds vertically. In the second half, a veil-like counter-motif appears in the string harmonics, a gesture that is at once airy and transparent as well as highly rhythmic and articulate. To mirror the initial movement of a single pitch moving outward, this second melody descends and merges with a rocketing, energetic ascent in the cello. The low strings rise from the depths while the high violins float downwards. They unite near the opening unison pitch, evoking the color and sound world of the work’s beginning.
White Stone is a 2017 work for orchestra that received it’s world premiere by the New York Philharmonic at the Vail Music Festival:
The composer writes:
A white stone is an object that is both unique yet familiar, a jewel and a pebble, emerging from the dirt to become something treasured. The music rises from dark, murky textures, striving towards brightness and clarity. The cello and timpani are the first to surface from the discord, stirring action in other sections of the orchestra. The percussion serves to rally and activate the music, leading the orchestra upwards towards brighter harmonies and unified rhythms. White Stone captures the struggle to be resilient and powerful in the face of overwhelming obstacles and fear of defeat.