Essential Adès
British composer, pianist and conductor Thomas Adès is unquestionably one of the most exciting and versatile musicians on the contemporary scene. His musical voice is a rare combination of very specific elements: powerful rhythmic drive; precisely-chosen colours, often crystalline, unmuddied, but sometimes earthy and extreme; and humour, which ranges from subtle, throwaway gestures to brazen, bawdy pastiche.
Read more…Born in London in 1971, Adès was runner-up in the piano category of the BBC's Young Musician of the Year competition in 1989 before going on to study at the University of Cambridge. From his earliest works his music combines meticulous technical precision with allusions to historical precedents, a tendency which prompted Harrison Birtwistle to argue that with Adès, "Nearly everything relates to something else, a model." These characteristics are articulated using an array of techniques: extreme registers, polyrhythms, virtuosity, playful parody, historical references – such as the 'Couperin Studies' or the Elgar-influenced "O Albion" from 'Arcadiana'. There are literary influences, too: Milton’s “Darknesse Visible”; Shakespeare’s Tempest, T.S. Eliot for the 'Five Eliot Landscapes', Mayan and Spanish poetry in 'America: A Prophecy'.
Adès is regularly drawn to explorations of different conceptions of time, from the idea of being trapped inside time in 'Asyla', with its dance-music influenced "Ecstasio", to the creation of time during 'In Seven Days', to the vast timelessness of 'Polaris'. 'Asyla' won Adès the RPS Music Awards in 1997 and Grawemeyer Award in 2000, and was hailed as a new 'Rite of Spring' – reflections of the esteem in which this composer is held.