Adam Rudolph Biography
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 12 September 1955, Chicago, Illinois, USA. Rudolph began playing percussion instruments at an early age. Inspired and encouraged by blues and improvised music artist, he studied at Oberlin College where he designed his own Bachelor of Music degree course in Ethnomusicology. He also studied at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana, in 1977, and a decade later took a master’s degree course in Fine Arts at the California Institute of the Arts. Eagerly exploring the potential of cross-cultural improvisation, Rudolph has travelled extensively, studying music, and especially percussion, in many countries. Concentrating upon hand drums, he plays bendir, congas, djembe, dumbek, kalimba, tabla, talking drum and udu. Additionally, he plays the didgeridoo and performs multiphonic singing.
Rudolph does not stop at the music of the countries he has explored, choosing to delve into the cultural and philosophical backgrounds of the societies from which he draws his musical inspiration. These societies are rooted in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East; in particular, he has absorbed at first hand, the traditions of Bali, Cuba, Ghana, Haiti, India and Morocco. In 1977, while living in Ghana, Rudolph encountered the Gambian griot, Foday Musa Suso. In 1978, Rudolph and Suso resumed their association, this time in Chicago, and formed the Mandingo Griot Society, creating an ambitious repertoire of traditional African music blended with early and late jazz styles. That same year, while in Morocco, Rudolph was attracted by the mystic sounds of Gnawa music. This led, late in the following decade, to a collaboration with the Gnawa master musician, Hassan Hakmoun. Indian associations include a long period of study of the tabla drums with Pandit Taranath. Rudolph also began a musical partnership with the Indian violinist, Lakshminarayana Shankar. Rudolph has also been active as a composer. Among his works is The Dreamer, an opera, featuring Butoh master Oguri and soprano Kimball Wheeler, which was premiered at the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles in July 1995. Another major work, also premiered in 1995 in Los Angeles, is The World At Peace, commissioned by the Rockefeller Foundation and which he co-composed with Yusef Lateef. Rudolph’s associations with Lateef are enduring. They co-composed their Double Concerto in 1991, and almost a decade later, Rudolph was featured soloist at the premiere of the Lateef’s African-American Epic Suite, when it was performed by the Köln Radio Orchestra. In addition to the musicians named, Rudolph has performed with Herbie Hancock (with whom he and Suso recorded Jazz Africa), Jon Hassell, James Newton, multi-instrumentalist Jihad Racy and Pharoah Sanders, and Wadada Leo Smith. He is also co-founder of the Eternal Wind ensemble, with which he premiered Terra Suite at New York’s Town Hall in 1991. He leads Adam Rudolph’s Moving Pictures at international festivals, and leads and composes for the percussion ensemble Vashti, in which the other musicians are Hamid Drake, Poovalur Srinivasan, Souhael Kaspar and I. Nyomen Wenten. To succeed in the task of composing music that is acceptable to and inspiring for musicians who are noted for their improvising skills, Rudolph has developed an original compositional technique, Cyclic Verticalism, which he has likened to independent planets circling a common sun. Although he has performed on numerous recording sessions with Lateef, Hassell and many others, Rudolph’s own-name albums were sparse until he formed his own record company, Meta Records. Since then, he has been able to lead a number if intriguing dates. Rudolph is also active as a teacher in the USA and Europe.
Source: The Encyclopedia of Popular Music by Colin Larkin. Licensed from Muze.
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12 September 1955, Chicago, Illinois, USA. Rudolph began playing percussion instruments at an early age. Inspired and encouraged by blues and improvised music artist, he studied at Oberlin College where he designed his own Bachelor of Music degree course in Ethnomusicology. He also studied at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana, in 1977, and a decade later took a master’s degree course in Fine Arts at the California Institute of the Arts. Eagerly exploring the potential of cross-cultural improvisation, Rudolph has travelled extensively, studying music, and especially percussion, in many countries. Concentrating upon hand drums, he plays bendir, congas, djembe, dumbek, kalimba, tabla, talking drum and udu. Additionally, he plays the didgeridoo and performs multiphonic singing.