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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 whose music weaves acoustic and digital sound into “mesmerizing” (New York Times) orchestrations.
Sought after by orchestras and contemporary ensemble alike, he has received commissions from a broad range of organizations including San Francisco Symphony, Carnegie Hall, New World Symphony, The Australian Chamber Orchestra, and Spektral Quartet, and has collaborated with performers and conductors such as Esa-Pekka Salonen, David Robertson, MTT, violinists Anthony Marwood, Jennifer Koh, Karen Gomyo, and pianists Emanuel Ax, Sarah Cahill, David Fung, and Joyce Yang.
The 2023-24 season features several world premieres including Eden Interstates, a work for organ and ensemble commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic for organist James McVinnie. The work will have its first performance as part of The California Festival under the direction of conductor Vimbayi Kaziboni at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Later in the season, a new work for the Australian Chamber Orchestra—Adams’s third for the group—will premiere as part of the 2024 Adelaide Festival at the Ukaria Cultural Centre in Mount Barker, Australia. In September, violinist Joe Puglia premiered Adams’s The Last Sound of Venice at the Gaudeamus Festival in Utrecht and will continue to tour the work throughout the Netherlands, culminating in a recording which will be released in 2024. More recently, Adams’s second record entitled Current, which features performances by violinist Karen Gomyo, pianist Conor Hanick, and the Spektral Quartet, was released on Other Minds Records.
Adams was Mead Composer In Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 2015 to 2018 and in the 2021-22 season was the Composer in Residence with Het Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. He has held residencies at Civitella Ranieri (Umbria, IT), Djerassi Resident Artists Program (California, USA), Ucross (Wyoming, USA), and Visby International Centre for Composers (Gotland, SE). He is a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow and lives and works in Seattle, WA.