Vivian Adelberg Rudow

Composer, Performance Artist, Concert Producer

I'm a “sound portrait painter” whose music has been performed around the world. One of a very few composers who has music skills to compose in classical acoustic and electro-acoustic music, (and those combined genres) my music often expresses emotion, life experiences, and hopes and dreams.

Like Brahms and Bartók, who sometimes used folk music in their works, pop music is for me American folk music. At times, I enjoy incorporating pop rhythms and vocabulary into my works.

Visit The Vivian performance art video A Music Garden of Love
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKhwDjx7lVE



Homepage Music: Excerpts from Sound Portraits

The CD Sound Portraits: Orchestra, Chamber and Electro-Acoustic Music by Vivian Adelberg Rudow has been released by MSR Classsics label. The album is an exciting collection of Adelberg Rudow’s finest compositions from 1985 to 2012 in an amazing variety of styles and performers from solo pianists to the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Sound Samlpes

For More Information


The CD Love, Loss, and Law by Vivian Adelberg Rudow,in memory of Myrtle Hollins Adelberg and Harry Adelberg. Features With Love, Portrait of a Friend and Portraits of Lawyers.

Click here to hear samples.



"Vivian Adelberg Rudow's Sound Portraits CD is a fascinating and most enjoyable listening experience. I hear hundreds of new CDs each year, and I've never heard anything quite like these pieces. Their collage-like nature creates an experience very reflective of contemporary life.”

— Carson Cooman, Composer in Residence, Harvard University


"Vicky's career represents the best elements of the composer taking part in the music community of her time, reaching out in all media. She has created a catalog of work we applaud."

— Frances Richard, Director of ASCAP Symphony & Concert Dept.
Speaking in the Baltimore Sun



"Looking for a Mother's day gift? This year skip the Hallmark card. Instead, call your mom, stick the phone next to your stereo speaker, and play Vivian Rudow's With Love. It'll make your mother happy, and maybe affect you even more deeply."

— Keyboard Magazine, Robert L. Doerschuk





Awards and Honors:

  • Winner ASCAP Plus awards every year since 1987.

  • First Prize 14th International Electroacoustic Music Competition, Bourges 1986, Program Division, With Love, for cello and tape.

  • First Maryland Composer to have an orchestra performance in Meyerhoff Symphony Hall by Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, 1982, Comissiona, Conductor, Force III, full orchestra.

  • First Prize, solo, duet division, the International Double Reed Society Composition Contest in 1977, Kaddish, solo bassoon.

  • Three winning pieces in 1970’s Annapolis Fine Arts Festival Music Composition Contests, Kaddish, First place winner, Anomalies, winner, The Lion and The Hares, winner.

  • Featured in the KEYBOARD MAGAZINE, May, 1989 issue.

  • City Arts Individual Artist Grant, 1986, 1992

  • Maryland State Arts Council Fellowship, 1986