Biography

Thomas Joseph Edmund Adès (born 1 March 1971) is a British composer, pianist and conductor. Five compositions by Adès received votes in the 2017 Classic Voice poll of the greatest works of art music since 2000: The Tempest (2004), Violin Concerto (2005), Tevot (2007), In Seven Days (2008), and Polaris (2010). Adès was born in London to art historian Dawn Adès and poet Timothy Adès. His surname is of Syrian Jewish origin. Adès is gay and identified his sexuality closely with the Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in his youth.Adès studied piano with Paul Berkowitz and later composition with Robert Saxton at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London. After attending University College School, he achieved a double starred first in 1992 at King's College, Cambridge, studying with Alexander Goehr and Robin Holloway. He was appointed Britten Professor of Composition in the Royal Academy of Music and in 2004 was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Essex.In 2007, a retrospective festival of Adès's work was presented at the Barbican Arts Centre in London and he was the focus of Radio France's annual contemporary music festival, "Présences", and Helsinki's "Musica Nova" festival. The Barbican festival, "Traced Overhead: The Musical World of Thomas Adès", included the UK premiere of a new work for Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic, Tevot. Journalist Tom Service wrote of the piece, "Of any piece of new music I've heard at its premiere, this is one of the most immediately, richly powerful." In the spring of 2007, The Tempest returned to the Royal Opera House.

In 2009, Adès was the focus of Stockholm Concert Hall's annual Composer Festival, and in 2010 he was appointed foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music.

On 8 October 2015, Adès was elected into the Board of Directors of the European Academy of Music Theatre.For 2022 he was awarded the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Music and Opera.Adès won an Ivor Novello Award at The Ivors Classical Awards 2023. Növények, for mezzo-soprano and piano sextet won the award for Best Chamber Ensemble Composition.