Adam Rudolph

Originally from Chicago, composer and handrummer/percussionist Adam Rudolph has, for the past three decades, appeared at festivals and concerts throughout North & South America, Europe, Africa, and Japan, In 1988 Rudolph began his association with the legendary Yusef Lateef, which lasts to this day. He has recorded 14 albums with Dr. Lateef including their large ensemble collaborations: “The World at Peace” (1995), “Beyond the Sky” (2000) and 2003’s “In The Garden” with Rudolph conducting his Go: Organic Orchestra. He has performed worldwide with Dr. Lateef in ensembles ranging from their acclaimed duo concerts to appearing as guest soloist with Koln, Atlanta and Detroit symphony orchestras.

Since the 1970’s Rudolph has been developing his unique syncretic approach to hand drums in creative collaborations with many masters of cross-cultural and improvised music such as Sam Rivers, Pharaoh Sanders, L. Shankar, and Fred Anderson. He is known especially for his innovative small group and duo collaborations with Don Cherry, Jon Hassel, Wadada Leo Smith, and Omar Sosa. Since1992 Rudolph has lead his own performing ensemble, Adam Rudolph’s Moving Pictures, featuring drummer Hamid Drake, Ralph Jones, and Venice based Butoh dance innovator Oguri. The group has performed in both Europe and the United States, and has released several CD’s featuring Rudolph’s compositions. In 1995 he premiered The Dreamer, an Opera based on Friedreich Nietzsche's “Birth of Tragedy”.

In 1990 he was commissioned by the LA Festival to create and lead Vashti Percussion Ensemble with percussionist masters from Bali, Iran, India, Lebanon and Java. The ensemble still performs annually. In the 1980’s Rudolph was artistic director of “World of Percussion” under the auspices of World Music Institute, Symphony Space, NYC.

In 2001 Rudolph founded Go: Organic Orchestra a 22-piece woodwind and percussion ensemble dedicated to developing his unique compositional and rhythm concepts in a large group format. In concert, Rudolph improvisationally conducts the ensemble using his own innovative process. The group has recorded three CDs to date.

Adam Rudolph is known as one the early innovators in what is now called “World Music”. In 1977 he co-founded The Mandingo Griot Society with Gambian Kora Griot, Foday Musa Suso, one of the first bands to combine African and American music. In 1988, he recorded the first fusion of American and Gnawa (Moroccan) music with Sintir player and singer Hassan Hakmoun.

From 1998 to 2001 Rudolph performed at the Festival D’Essaouira in Morocco in collaboration with many leading Gnawa Maleems (masters). For 2 of those years he was artistic director and curator of “Calling Across the Water” an acoustic collaboration between American, Bambara and Gnawa musicians at that festival

Active as a performer in the Los Angeles creative music scene since 1979, Rudolph has also contributed by producing concerts and running his own Meta Records label. In 1998 he organized the three-day Bootstrap Festival, Los Angeles, presenting over 75 artists from many local and national cultural backgrounds. From 1992 •97 he organized and performed a free weekly concert series of improvised music for children at the Jazz Bakery which featured guitarist Kevin Eubanks and Ralph Jones.

He has received grants and compositional commissions from the Rockefeller Foundation, Meet the Composer, Mary Flagler Cary Trust, the NEA, Arts International, Durfee Foundation and American Composers Forum.