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ThomasAdès CBE

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  • Conductor
  • Piano

About Thomas

Thomas Adès' compositions include three operas: he conducted the premiere of the most recent, The Exterminating Angel, at the 2016 Salzburg Festival and subsequently at the Metropolitan Opera, New York and the Royal Opera House, London. He conducted the premiere and revival of The Tempest at the Royal Opera House, and a new production at The Metropolitan Opera, Wiener Staatsoper and in November 2022 at La Scala, Milan. Thomas led the world premiere of his full-evening ballet , The Dante Project , at Covent Garden and conducted it in May 2023 at the Opéra Garnier, Paris. He conducted a new production of The Exterminating Angel, featuring a critically acclaimed staging from Calixto Bieito, in spring 2024 at the Opéra Bastille in Paris.

October 2024 sees Thomas conduct the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester as part of his two-season residency with the ensemble, which sees him appear as conductor, pianist and composer in various concert formats. Last autumn Thomas also began a two-season residency with the Hallé orchestra – for the first appearance this 24/25 season, on 21 November 2024, Thomas conducts Aquifer, alongside his Air – Homage to Sibelius for violin and orchestra, which received its UK premiere with the London Symphony Orchestra in May 2024. Further 24/25 highlights include Thomas’ concerts with the Orchestre de l'Opéra national de Paris, London Symphony Orchestra, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin.

The world premiere recording of Thomas Adès’ Dante from Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic won the Grammy Award for Best Orchestral Performance at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards in February 2024.

In September 2024, Thomas received the Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medal, presented live onstage at the BBC Proms by conductor Sir Simon Rattle – himself a recipient of the RPS Gold Medal in 2000.

Thomas is based in London, UK

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Contact

General Enquiries, Logistics & Press

Adam Brady

Adam Brady

Associate Artist Manager

Representation

General Management with Askonas Holt, in collaboration with Angela Dixon

Partner Managers:
Alec Treuhaft (North America)

Publisher: Faber Music

Season Highlights

Sep 2024
Queen Elizabeth Hall, London
Fairy-Tale Dances Thomas Adès (piano) Lawrence Power (viola, violin) Purcell: Full fathom five from The Tempest arr. Thomas Adès Adès: Berceuse No.2 from The Exterminating Angel arr. viola & piano Britten: Waltz from Suite, Op.6 arr. viola & piano Tippett: Come unto these yellow sands from Songs for Ariel Dowland: If my complaints could passions move Britten: Lachrymae (Reflections on a song of Dowland) for viola & piano, Op.48 Adès: Märchentänze for violin & piano Berio: Naturale for viola, percussion & recorded voice Stravinsky: Divertimento from The Fairy's Kiss arr. Stravinsky & Dushkin for violin & piano
Oct 2024
Gewandhaus zu Leipzig
Ravel: La Valse Liszt: Mephisto Waltz no. 1 Tchaikovsky: Francesca da Rimini Adès: Totentanz Gewandhausorchester Thomas Adès (conductor) Jess Dandy (mezzo) Mark Stone (baritone)
Oct 2024
Barbican, London
Beethoven: Symphony No 1 Adámek: Follow Me (Concerto for Violin and Orchestra) Beethoven: Symphony No 4 London Symphony Orchestra Thomas Adès (conductor) Isabelle Faust (violin)
Nov 2024
Auditorium de la Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris
Haydn: Symphony 'Tempora mutantur' no. 64 Adès: Shanty - Over the Sea Adès: Lieux retrouvés (for cello and orchestra) Janáček: Concertino for piano, winds and strings Ibert: Divertissement Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen Thomas Adès (conductor) Nicolas Altstaedt (cello)
Nov 2024
Bridgewater Hall, Manchester
Sibelius: Symphony No.7 Rautavaara: Deux Sérénades Adès: Aquifer (UK Premiere) Adès: Air – Homage To Sibelius Sibelius: Symphony No.5 The Hallé Orchestra Thomas Adès (conductor) Stephen Waarts (violin)

Photos

News

Press

  • London Symphony Orchestra

    Barbican Centre
    Nov 2024
    • Symphonies by Beethoven, the First and the Fourth, topped and tailed the concert. With such a demanding work as the centrepiece of the programme they could have been routinely efficient performances, but these were anything but routine. The First in particular was transformed by the urgency with which Adès approached it, every rhythm pin-point sharp, every dynamic contrast fiercely underlined, to leave the symphony’s Haydnesque beginnings far behind, while the Fourth was disarmingly witty and exhilarating, with superb solo woodwind playing (from the flute and bassoon especially), and faultlessly crisp strings.

  • Adès, Leith, Tippet / Hallé

    Bridgewater Hall, Manchester
    Apr 2024
    • Adès prefaced Tevot with Elgar’s Sospiri, drawing almost symphonic intensity from what is at first sight just a salon piece, but then demonstrated that his own work has a power that really deserves the word symphonic. Played as magnificently as this, Tevot becomes an immense statement, whichfollows its own irrefutable musical logic while also seeming – for me at least – to conjure up echoes of late Mahler (of the 10th symphony especially); it’s undoubtedly one of Adès’s finest achievements.

    • Conducted by Thomas Adès, the Hallé Orchestra threw everything at this concert — and I don’t just mean the huge array of bells, vast and small, assembled for Oliver Leith’s new piece. That came as the climax to a stupendous first half that must have left the players gasping for their interval beverage. And they still had an intense miniature by Elgar (the tiny but tragically hued Sospiri) and Adès’s own 2007 masterpiece Tevot to come. Concerts like this renew one’s faith in the ability of British orchestras not just to survive but to flourish, startle and exhilarate even in these problematic times. Adès’s Tevot also requires a vast orchestra, especially in the jangling percussion department, but it’s a very different piece: a 20-minute epic in which a dark mass of sound seems to journey through storms of high-frequency, high-velocity clouds before reaching a point of ethereal beauty and comparative repose. The title has Hebrew biblical connotations, referencing Noah’s ark and the infant Moses’s basket; hearing it at the present time certainly made one reflect on the need for safe passages through times of turmoil.

  • Adès, Tchaikovsky, Sibelius / London Philharmonic Orchestra

    Royal Festival Hall, London
    Feb 2023 - Feb 2023
    • If the illustrative music on display wasn’t vivid enough, further attack came from Adès’s exceedingly physical podium manner.

    • Thomas Adès’ "Tempest" Symphony proved a shapely and gorgeous precis of his 2004 opera in a concert conducted by the composer himself. Tchaikovsky’s “Fantasy after Dante” Francesca da Rimini made a rip-roaring end to the concert, the orchestra at full throttle, and Adès steadily ratcheting up the excitement.

    • Adès drew characterful playing from the LPO, especially fine in the sparsely-scored Berceuse and Ariel’s Song. Sections like The Feast demonstrate Adès’ vivid orchestrational mastery, harp, piano and glockenspiel tickling the ear as Ariel conjures up a feast for the shipwreck survivors. Tchaikovsky’s "Francesca da Rimini" was given an impulsive, no holds barred reading that saw Adès driving the LPO at full throttle.

  • "The Dante Project" / The Royal Ballet

    Royal Opera House, London
    Oct 2021 - Oct 2021
    • It is Adès’s score (which the composer conducts) that really sets the tone. Full of riches, it shimmers, growls and rumbles, glints and slides. In Inferno he’s definitely in the devil-has-the-best-tunes camp, sometimes soaring into Romanticism, sometimes rollicking like a night at the circus. It’s so far from the kind of music McGregor usually choreographs and it forces new invention, making dance to relish, more classical than usual in places, but also more characterful, even comical.

    • The real triumph of the evening is Adès’s score, which the composer conducts himself. It’s a sweeping work of fantastic orchestral colours and intense contemporary drama, yet harking back to a romantic age and not afraid to be playful and melodic when called for.

  • "Winterreise" CD

    w/ Ian Bostridge
    Aug 2019 - Aug 2019
    • Right from the footstep tread launching the first song, Adès’s piano accompaniment never falters in its imaginative response to imagery and emotional mood, sometimes acting in counterpoint, sometimes allied. Frozen teardrops? A barking dog? The leaves on a tree? We see them in sound. Elsewhere, it’s their sheer detachment that make Adès’s notes so devastating, helping to build the cycle’s mounting atmosphere of desolation — one unresolved by the organ-grinder’s cryptic appearance in the final song.

  • Adès and Gerstein piano duo

    Jordan Hall, Boston
    Mar 2019 - Mar 2019
    • Ravel’s “La Valse,” the final piece, was the concert’s high point. The two were at their mind-melded best, bewitching in their rendition of the dreamy, sumptuous waltz and the grotesque currents of darkness that grasped it, conjuring up a danse macabre for a world whirling off its axis.

Askonas Holt sends 26 artists and touring partners to BBC Proms 2025

/24 April 2025

This morning saw the announcement of this summer’s BBC Proms’ line-up, which is set to include performances from 26 Askonas Holt artists and touring partners.

Our Tours and Projects team is proud to once again be bringing the Wiener Philharmoniker to the Proms, following our 2019 collaboration with the orchestra and Bernard Haitink in what marked not only the year of the legendary maestro’s 90th birthday but also the 65th anniversary of his conducting debut. This summer we bring the Wiener Philharmoniker back to the Royal Albert Hall with Franz Welser-Möst for two performances – the first with Berg’s Lulu Suite paired with Bruckner’s Symphony No.9, and the second, Mozart’s Symphony No.38 Prague alongside Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.6 Pathétique.

Cristian Măcelaru and the Orchestre National de France also return in collaboration with Askonas Holt for a French-themed programme that includes Ravel’s Rapsodie espagnole and La valse, as well as Bologne’s Violin Concerto and Chausson’s Poème, both with soloist Randall Goosby.

Our Tours and Projects team also brings mandolinist Avi Avital and his Between Worlds Ensemble for their Proms debut as they take the audience on a sonic tour of the countries that border the Black Sea, performing traditional Crimean Tatar music, Turkish folk and klezmer plus works by Bartók and Fazil Say.

Sir Simon Rattle gives two performances this summer; the first sees him team up with the wind, brass and percussion of the London Symphony Orchestra for folk-song arrangements by Vaughan Williams, Grainger and Arnold alongside Gunther Schuller’s trombone concerto. He follows that with his first performance with The Chineke! Orchestra conducting Shostakovich’s Symphony No.10.

Having recently been invited to become an Honorary Member, Robin Ticciati joins the Chamber Orchestra of Europe with soloist Golda Schultz for a programme of songs by Bernstein, Gershwin, Weill alongside Schreker’s Chamber Symphony and Stravinsky’s ballet The Firebird. The appearance marks Robin’s first with the COE at the Proms and the ensemble’s first appearance since their 2017 performance under Bernard Haitink.

Edward Gardner is back with the London Philharmonic Orchestra for a 20th-century programme of Debussy’s La mer, Sibelius’s The Oceanides and Ravel’s song-cycle Shéhérazade.

Thomas Adès leads the BBC Symphony in a performance of music from his own opera The Tempest alongside Sibelius’s tone-poem The Swan of Tuonela.

Domingo Hindoyan and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic are joined by trumpeter Pacho Flores in his Proms debut for Arturo Márquez’s Concierto de otoño presented alongside Dvořák’s Symphony No.9 From the New World and Jennifer Higdon’s Blue Cathedral.

Peter Whelan makes his Proms debut conducting the Irish Baroque Orchestra in Handel’s Alexander's Feast with countertenor Hugh Cutting as soloist. The performance marks the ensemble’s Proms debut, making them only the second Irish orchestra to perform at the Festival in its more than 125-year history.

Conductor Laureate Tadaaki Otaka returns with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales for Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No.2 with soloist Vadym Kholodenko, alongside Lutosławski’s Concerto for Orchestra. Recent signing Benjamin Grosvenor also joins forces with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under the baton of Ryan Bancroft for Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major.

Cellist Johannes Moser presents the UK premiere of Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s concerto Before we fall with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and conductor Eva Ollikainen. Next month sees Johannes give the world premiere of the piece with the San Francisco Symphony conducted by Dalia Stasevska.

Four Askonas Holt singers make debuts in Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District with the BBC Philharmonic. Amanda Majeski, John Findon and Ava Dodd all make their Proms debuts as Katerina, Zinovy and Aksinya/Convict respectively, while Nicky Spence returns making a role debut as Sergey.

Also making their Proms debuts are Jasmin White who joins the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and Fabio Luisi for Beethoven’s Symphony No.9, and Sarah Dufresne who also makes a role debut singing Sister Genovieffa in Suor Angelica with the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Antonio Pappano.

Jess Dandy and Ashley Riches return with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra singing Stravinsky’s last major work - the Requiem Canticles, and Laurence Kilsby joins the BBC Symphony Orchestra for Arthur Bliss’ The Beatitudes.

Outside of London, Benjamin Hulett joins the Royal Northern Sinfonia at the Glasshouse as soloist for Mendelssohn’s Symphony No.2 Lobgesang. Also at the Glasshouse, Ema Nikolovska celebrates the centenary of the birth of Pierre Boulez with his Le marteau sans maître as part of a touring project with guitarist Sean Shibe and friends.

The BBC Proms 2025 runs from Friday 18 July to Saturday 13 September, with all performances broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 and streamed on BBC Sounds. To view the full line-up, please click here.

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