Samuel Adams (born December 30, 1985) is an American

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

. He was born in

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

. He is a recipient of a 2019

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

Life and career

Adams grew up in the

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

Bay Area, where he performed double bass and studied composition and

electroacoustics Acoustical engineering (also known as acoustic engineering) is the branch of engineering dealing with sound and vibration. It includes the application of acoustics, the science of sound and vibration, in technology. Acoustical engineers are typical ...

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

; he later studied with

Martin Bresnick Martin Bresnick (born 1946) is a composer of contemporary classical music, film scores and experimental music. Education and early career Bresnick grew up in the Bronx, and is a graduate of New York City's specialized High School of Music and A ...

. His music draws on his experiences in a diverse array of disciplines including classical forms,

microsound Granular synthesis is a sound synthesis method that operates on the microsound time scale. It is based on the same principle as sampling. However, the samples are split into small pieces of around 1 to 100 ms in duration. These small pieces ar ...

noise Noise is unwanted sound considered unpleasant, loud or disruptive to hearing. From a physics standpoint, there is no distinction between noise and desired sound, as both are vibrations through a medium, such as air or water. The difference arise ...

improvised music Musical improvisation (also known as musical extemporization) is the creative activity of immediate ("in the moment") musical composition, which combines performance with communication of emotions and instrumental technique as well as spontaneous ...

and field recording. Adams has received commissions from

New World Symphony New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created. New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz Albums and EPs * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...

San Francisco Symphony The San Francisco Symphony (SFS), founded in 1911, is an American orchestra based in San Francisco, California. Since 1980 the orchestra has been resident at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in the city's Hayes Valley neighborhood. The San Fr ...

Carnegie Hall Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhatta ...

, and the

Chicago Symphony Orchestra The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) was founded by Theodore Thomas in 1891. The ensemble makes its home at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival. The music director is Riccardo Muti, who began his tenure ...

and has collaborated with performers such as Emanuel Ax, Sarah Cahill,

Karen Gomyo Karen Gomyo is a classical violinist. Biography Karen Gomyo was born in Tokyo, Japan and grew up in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, where she started violin lessons at 5 years old. At the age of 10, she moved to New York City to study at the Juill ...

, Jennifer Koh, Anthony Marwood,

Joyce Yang Joyce Yang (Korean name 양희원, born 11 April 1986 in Seoul, Korea) is a classical pianist. Yang was awarded the silver medal at the 2005 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition at the age of 19. During the same competition, Joyce was also ...

and conductors such as David Robertson,

Esa-Pekka Salonen Esa-Pekka Salonen (; born 30 June 1958) is a Finnish orchestral conductor and composer. He is principal conductor and artistic advisor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, conductor laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and music di ...

, and

Michael Tilson Thomas Michael Tilson Thomas (born December 21, 1944) is an American conductor, pianist and composer. He is Artistic Director Laureate of the New World Symphony, an American orchestral academy based in Miami Beach, Florida, Music Director Laureate of ...

. He is currently one of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's two composers-in-residence, having been jointly named to the post with

Elizabeth Ogonek Elizabeth Ogonek (born May 26, 1989) is an American composer of contemporary classical music. Biography Ogonek was born in Anoka, Minnesota, and raised in New York City. There she began her studies in the Preparatory Division at the Manhattan Sch ...

in 2015. He is the son of composer

John Adams John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Befor ...

and photographer Deborah O'Grady.

Notable works

Orchestral and Large Ensemble Works

* ''Drift and Providence'' (2012) * ''Violin Concerto'' (2013) * ''Radial Play'' (2014) * ''many words of love'' (2016) * ''Chamber Concerto'' (2017) * ''Movements (for Us and Them)'' (Concerto Grosso) (2018) * ''Variations'' (2020) * ''Echo Transcriptions'' (2022) * ''No Such Spring'' (2021-2022)

Chamber Works

* ''Tension Studies'' for electric guitar, percussion, and electronics (2010 - 2011) * ''String Quartet in Five Movements'' (2013) * ''Quartet Movement'' (2016) * ''Quintet with Pillars'' (2018) * ''Second Quartet'' (2016-2019) * ''Violin Diptych'' (2020) * ''Sundial'' (2021)

Solo Works

* ''Shade Studies'' (2014) * ''Impromptus'' (2015) * ''Sonatas'' (2016) * ''Playing Changes'' (2020)

Multimedia Works

* ''Lyra'' (2018-2020)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Adams, Samuel 1985 births 21st-century American composers American jazz composers American electronic musicians American jazz musicians Living people Stanford University School of Humanities and Sciences alumni American male jazz composers 21st-century American male musicians 21st-century jazz composers