Piers Adams (born 21 December 1963) is a British recorder player and member of

baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...

group

Red Priest Red Priest is a British Baroque instrumental group that was formed in 1997 by Piers Adams. Currently it is composed of four performers: Adams on recorder, Adam Summerhayes on violin, Angela East on cello and David Wright on harpsichord. The g ...

. After attending

Reading Blue Coat School Reading Blue Coat School is a co-educational private day school in Holme Park, Sonning, Berkshire. It is situated beside the River Thames, and was established in 1646 by Richard Aldworth, who named it "Aldworth's Hospital". Aldworth founded ...

Adams trained as a physicist at the University of Bristol, but turned professionally to the recorder at age 21. Adams has received awards for his recorder playing, including first prize in the inaugural Moeck International Recorder Competition (1985) which led to debuts in London venues such as the

Wigmore Hall The Wigmore Hall is a concert hall at 36 Wigmore Street, in west London. It was designed by Thomas Edward Collcutt and opened in 1901 as the Bechstein Hall; it is considered to have particularly good building acoustics, acoustics. It specialis ...

and Royal Festival Hall. As a concert soloist, Adams performs with orchestras including the

BBC Symphony Orchestra The BBC Symphony Orchestra (BBC SO) is a British orchestra based in London. Founded in 1930, it was the first permanent salaried orchestra in London, and is the only one of the city's five major symphony orchestras not to be self-governing. The ...

s, the

Philharmonia The Philharmonia Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It was founded in 1945 by Walter Legge, a classical music record producer for EMI. Among the conductors who worked with the orchestra in its early years were Richard Strauss, ...

, the

Academy of Ancient Music The Academy of Ancient Music (AAM) is a British period-instrument orchestra based in Cambridge, England. Founded by harpsichordist Christopher Hogwood in 1973, it was named after an 18th-century organisation of the same name (originally the A ...

, Guildhall Strings, the English Sinfonia, the

City of London Sinfonia City of London Sinfonia (CLS) is an English chamber orchestra based in London. CLS is orchestra-in-residence at Opera Holland Park since 2004 and holds a residency at St Paul's Cathedral. CLS also performs regularly across the city of London i ...

London Musici London Musici is a chamber orchestra founded in 1988 by Mark Stephenson. It has given over 1000 performances as the associate orchestra for the Rambert Dance Company Rambert (known as Rambert Dance Company before 2014) is a leading British da ...

and the

Singapore Symphony Orchestra The Singapore Symphony Orchestra (SSO) is a symphony orchestra based in Singapore. Its principal concert venue is the Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay. The orchestra also gives concerts at the Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall, and performs ...

. CD recordings range from his debut of Vivaldi Concertos (Cala) to David Bedford's Recorder Concerto (NMC). CDs include ''Recorder Bravura'' (romantic showpieces), ''Shine and Shade'' (20th century sonatas) and seven Red Priest CDs: ''Priest on the Run'', ''Nightmare in Venice'', ''The Four Seasons'', ''Pirates of the Baroque'', ''Johann, I'm Only Dancing'', ''Handel in the wind'' and ''Baroque Bohemians,'' which reached No.1 in the UK Specialist Classical Charts in October 2018. In 2019 Adams recorded a baroque new-age crossover album, ''Bach Side of the Moon,'' which reached No. 5 in the international New Age Music charts.

References

External links

Piers Adams website

Red Priest website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Adams, Piers 1963 births Living people British classical musicians British recorder players British performers of early music Factory Records artists People educated at Reading Blue Coat School Albany Records artists