His new oratorio Circular 14: The Apotheosis of Aristides, for soloists, two choruses, and a large orchestra was previewed in Los Angeles in 2016 and Salt Lake City in 2018. His third opera, Flora, was commissioned and produced by Spoleto USA, and can be heard online at NPR’s World of Opera. Hansel and Gretel was commissioned and produced by Connecticut Opera, and subsequently produced at Trinity College of Music (London) and the University of Illinois. Americana, or, a New Tale of the Genii was commissioned by the NEA and produced in semi-staged concert version at Symphony Space (NYC). Pyramus and Thisbe, Bruce’s first one-act opera, was recently revived by the Graduate Opera Workshop at Indiana University. Other works of Bruce’s that have been widely heard include seven documentary scores for PBS; his setting of the Bill of Rights to music in the style of William Billings for chorus and eight instruments, which has been performed dozens of times by professional and dedicated amateur ensembles; and his largest work, CONVERGENCE, which was commissioned by the American Composers Forum, as part of its Continental Harmony project and premiered in 2000 at the New Haven International Festival of Arts and Ideas. The work was revised and expanded for the Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors in 2002, where it was received by an enthusiastic audience of 10,000 listeners.
Bruce’s enthusiasms include William Billings, The Sacred Harp, Anthony Philip Heinrich (“the Beethoven of America”), Arthur Farwell, Charles Ives, Pauline Oliveros, John Cage, and the work of his late mentor, Henry Brant. He was the founder and director of two ensembles devoted exclusively to the music of the United States—the American Music Group (at the University of Illinois) and the American Music/Theatre Group, headquartered in Hartford, Connecticut. Important engagements as a conductor include the 20th century revival of Rip Van Winkle by George Bristow, several major works of Brant, and premieres by Brant, Oliveros, Fulkerson, Wolff. Important premieres as a keyboard player include The Time Curve Preludes of William Duckworth, Twelve Fugues by Gerald Shapiro, HPSCHD by Cage and Hiller, the Farwell Piano Sonata, and the first complete public performance of Organ and Silence by Tom Johnson. In 2009 he became the only pianist to have performed all of the solo vocal music of Charles Ives, and in 2013 he began "This Is It!" — a series of seventeen recitals comprising his complete music for piano, which concluded in 2019. In 2022 he began "This Is It! 2.0" — a series of concerts featuring his considerable chamber music output and his song cycles. Neely Bruce is the John Spencer Camp Professor of Music at Wesleyan University.