On November 18, composer, pianist, and educator James Adler, playing with intensity, gave a diverse recital, entitled “Homages,” available on-line at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ytvu_tcbNsw and on the Arts on Bergen Facebook page. It was the day before his birthday.

James Adler, 2019 - photo by Bruce-Michael Gelbert

.......................................................................................................................................................................................

Adler opened with “Three Short Pieces (composed in the age of Covid),” written during this past summer. Seth Bedford’s “Summer of Stillness (Inventions for piano solo)” captures the restraint of these days in lockdown. Young Kuwaiti composer Abdulaziz Shabakoukh’s imaginative piece, with flair, is named for the man who inspired it: “James Adler.” Adler ended the group with his own haunting and uplifting “For Notorious,” dedicated to “Ruth Bader Ginsburg/Our Rockstar/of Blessed Memory/Rosh Hashana 5781,” whom we lost at the start of the Jewish New Year. Considered elsewhere in these pages, it certainly bears repeating.
Adler gave us the late Paul Turok’s “Little Suite for Piano, Opus Nine,” from the 1970s, and consisting of a lively Prelude, ornate and playful Arabesque, and fiery final Toccata.
The artist honored the semiquincentennial of Ludwig van Beethoven’s birth by delivering, with feeling, a virtuoso account of the early-Romantic “32 Variations in C Minor” (1806). He rounded off the afternoon with a rhapsodic and rousing performance of four of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s 10 “Preludes, Opus 23” (1901-1903): Number Four Andante cantabile in D Major, Number Five Alla marcia in G minor, Number Six Andante in E-flat major, and Number Two Maestoso in B-flat Major.