Adès, Thomas (Joseph Edmund)
Adès, Thomas (Joseph Edmund)
Adès, Thomas (Joseph Edmund), remarkable English composer and pianist; b. London, March 1, 1971. He studied piano with Paul Berkowitz and composition with Robert Saxton at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, and then pursued his training with Hugh Wood, Alexander Goehr, and Robin Holloway at King’s Coll., Cambridge (M.A., 1992) before taking his M.Phil, at St. John’s Coll., Cambridge. He also took courses in Dartington (1991) and Aldeburgh (1992). In 1993 he attracted notice as a pianist and composer when he gave a London recital featuring the premiere of his Still Sorrowing. His Living Toys for Chamber Ensemble (1993) secured his reputation as a composer of promise. In 1993-94 he was a lecturer at the Univ. of Manchester, and also served as composer-in-association with the Hallé Orch. in Manchester from 1993 to 1995. His chamber opera, Powder Her Face (Cheltenham Festival, July 1, 1995), established him as a dramatic composer of marked talent. From 1995 to 1997 he was fellow commoner in creative arts at Trinity Coll., Cambridge. He was the Benjamin Britten Prof. of Music at the Royal Academy of Music in London (from 1997), musical director of the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (from 1998), and artistic director of the Aldeburgh Festival (from 1999). In 1998 he was awarded the Elise L. Stroeger Prize of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in N.Y. He is currently composing a commissioned 2nd opera for Covent Garden, to a libretto by James Fenton, to premiere in 2001.
Works
DRAMATIC: Powder Her Face, chamber opera (Cheltenham Festival, July 1, 1995). ORCH.: Chamber Sym. (1990); ...but all shall be well (1993); These Premises Are Alarmed (1996); Asyla (1997); Concerto Conciso for Piano and Orch. (1997–98). CHAMBER: Catch for Clarinet, Piano, Cello, and Violin (1991); Living Toys for Chamber Ensemble (1993); Sonata da Caccia for Ensemble (1993); The Origin of the Harp for Chamber Ensemble (1994); Arcadiana for String Quartet (1994). KEYBOARD: Piano: Darkness Visible (1992); Still Sorrowing (1992); Traced Overhead (1996). Organ: Under Hamelin Hill for Chamber Organ (1992). VOCAL: Aubade for Soprano and Piano (1990); 5 Eliot Landscapes for Soprano and Piano (1990); Fool’s Rhymes for Chorus and Ensemble (1992); Life Story for Soprano and Ensemble (1993).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire