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About Sam
“Adams shows himself to be among the most interesting composers of the millennial generation.”
—Gramophone Magazine
Samuel Adams (b. 1985) is an American composer. Gramophone Magazine praised Adams as “among the most interesting composers of the millennial generation in his negotiation of the tensions that shape and define his musical narratives: between directness and implication, silence and resonance, emotion and its aftermath.”
His work resists the traditional tensions of classical music, blending acoustic and digital sounds in inventive, texturally rich compositions. Adams’s music has been hailed as “mesmerizing” by The New York Times and The San Francisco Chronicle, “transcendent” by The Chicago Tribune, and “beguiling” by The Strad magazine. He has been commissioned by a number of major ensembles, including the San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New World Symphony, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and The Living Earth Show. He has also collaborated with many of today's leading artists, such as conductors Esa-Pekka Salonen, Michael Tilson Thomas, Karina Canellakis, and David Robertson; pianists Conor Hanick, Emanuel Ax, Sarah Cahill, and Joyce Yang; and violinists Karen Gomyo, Anthony Marwood, and Jennifer Koh.
Adams’s orchestral work No Such Spring, commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony for pianist Conor Hanick and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, premiered in February 2023 to widespread acclaim. The Wall Street Journal described it as “bewitching… a major work as appealing as it is thought-provoking, and as heartfelt as it is inventive.” The San Francisco Chronicle called it “ingenious… a marvel… Adams’ formal logic is not only impeccable but accessible. You can feel the landscape becoming broader deep in your innards.” Musical America praised it as “scintillating and gloriously expansive… at once ingratiating, inventive, and structurally ambitious,” adding that No Such Spring is “one of those new works that leaves a listener wanting to hear it all over again right away.”
The 2024-25 season features several premieres and performances, including the world premiere of Adams’s third string quartet—commissioned by the Alma Quartet, who will tour the work throughout the Netherlands and Belgium, with its debut performance at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. To conclude his residency with the Concertgebouw, his 2020 orchestral work Variations, a co-commission with the Cincinnati Symphony and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, will receive its European premiere as part of the Zaterdagmatinee series, conducted by Karina Canellakis. A new vocal work for soprano and ensemble, co-commissioned by Aspen Music Festival, Oberlin Conservatory, and the University of Southern California and featuring the poetry of Tracy K. Smith, Pádraig Ó Tuama, and Malachi Black, will premiere at the Aspen Music Festival in the summer of 2025. Repeat performances of recent chamber works will take place at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St. Louis, 92NY, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York, and the Sydney Festival as will a performance of Adams’s 2017 Chamber Concerto with Peter Oundjian, Claude Sim, and the Colorado Symphony.
As a committed educator, Adams regularly collaborates with young musicians. In 2015, he helped establish the Civic Orchestra New Music Workshop with the Negaunee Institute of Music, a program for emerging composers. He was also in residence with the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America in 2014, where he composed a work premiered under the baton of David Robertson. Adams has written two works for The Crowden School in Berkeley, CA, where he continues to mentor students.
Adams served as Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 2015 to 2018 and as Composer-in-Residence with Het Concertgebouw in Amsterdam during the 2021-22 season. He has held residencies at Civitella Ranieri (Umbria, Italy), Music Academy of the West (Santa Barbara, CA), Spoleto Festival (Charleston, SC), Djerassi Resident Artists Program (California, USA), Ucross (Wyoming, USA), and the Visby International Centre for Composers (Gotland, Sweden). Adams lives and works in Seattle, WA.