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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.”
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 2025–26 season features a number of premieres and notable performances. A new work for the Marmen Quartet and percussionist Dominique Vleeshouwers will premiere at Het Muziekgebouw as part of the Amsterdam String Quartet Biennial, in an evening titled Time is How You Spend Your Love alongside Adams’s Sundial and works by Feldman, Miller, and Beethoven. Adams’s song cycle First Work—featuring poetry by Pádraig Ó Tuama, Malachi Black, and Tracy K. Smith—will receive its world premiere at the Aspen Music Festival, followed by performances from co-commissioners Oberlin Conservatory, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, and the USC Thornton School of Music.
In October 2025, Other Minds will present a portrait concert of Adams’s chamber works, showcasing some of his closest collaborations with pianists Conor Hanick and Sarah Cahill, violinist Helen Kim, Friction Quartet, and percussionist Haruka Fujii. Later in the fall, pianist Conor Hanick will give the world premiere of the complete, revised Impromptus at the Kaufman Center in New York City.
Adams will also be a featured artist with the Berkeley Symphony, with a marquee performance of his Chamber Concerto featuring violinist Helen Kim, and as curator of a chamber concert spotlighting percussionist Haruka Fujii. In the spring of 2026, a new recording of Adams’s third string quartet, commissioned and performed by the Alma Quartet, will be released on Challenge Classics.
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.