Adam Gorb
Professor of Composition
MA Cantab, MMus, Dip RAM, FRNCM, PhD University of Birmingham
Email: [email protected]
Teaching Composition 1/1 and in groups
Professor Adam Gorb was Head of the School of Composition from 2000 – 2023. He was made a Fellow of the RNCM in 2007.
A winner of three British Composer Awards, he studied music at Cambridge University (BA 1980), Composition at the Royal Academy of Music (where he graduated with the highest honours including the Principal’s Prize in 1993), and in 2013 completed a PhD in Composition at Birmingham University. Prior to joining the RNCM Adam worked as a musical director and repetiteur in London’s West End and in repertory theatre and drama colleges, in addition to teaching composition at the London College of Music and Media and the Royal Academy of Music’s Junior Academy.
His compositions include orchestral, ensemble, chamber, solo, vocal and choral, and have been commissioned, performed, broadcast and recorded worldwide. His works, many of which are commercially available, have featured in new music festivals in Huddersfield, Cheltenham, Spitalfields and Canterbury, and he has been a featured composer at Luton and Bromsgrove music clubs snd on summer courses t Chetham’s and Sherborne. He has had concerts devoted to his music in the UK, the USA and Canada, and a chapter in A Composer’s Insight (Meredith Music USA 2013) is dedicated to his work. His operas Anya 17 (2012) and The Path to Heaven (2018) have been performed in Europe and the USA. There are several CDs devoted to his works including 24 Preludes written for the pianist Clare Hammond released in 2022 on the Toccata label.
Adam has been a guest lecturer in universities and conservatoires in the USA, South Korea, Canada, Japan, Belgium, Holland, Ireland, Germany, Lithuania, Turkey, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Austria and Australia.
Current and Future Research
Forthcoming premieres:
Sonatina for Flute, Viola and Harp. Premiere on November 29th 2024. Holy Sephulcre Church, Holborn Viaduct, London. Musicians from the Royal Academy of Music.
Clarinet Quintet – written for Linda Merrick and the Kreutzer Quartet; recording and premiere 2024/2025.
Future Research:
Beggars Belief (2023) – song cycle arranged for soprano, harp and string ensemble, to be part of a CD including String Quartet no. 2 (2008) with the Victoria Quartet and two works by Anthony Gilbert (1934 – 2013.)
New piano piece in combination with working with people with Parkinsons disease. (2025.)
External Research Roles
Specialist External Examiner in Composition for PhD portfolios at the Royal Academy of Music, University of Birmingham, University of Kent at Canterbury, King’s College, London, Goldsmith’s College and York University, Exeter University, Guildhall, Oxford University and Bristol University.
Teaching and composers competition adjudicating at Royal Marines School of Music Portsmouth. Teacher of composition 2024 – 2025.
Research Funding
Arts Council and RNCM for a performance of Anya 17 in Romania involving a collaboration between the director and singers from the original RNCM performances and a conductor, singers and instrumentalists from the Timisoara Academy of Music in Romania.
Arts Council, PRS Open Fund, John S Cohen Foundation, RNCM, Britten Pears Trust towards costs for the opera The Path to Heaven.
RVW Trust, RNCM and Ida Carroll Foundation towards costs for a CD of 24 Preludes for piano.
Undergraduate Teaching
Composition
1/1 teaching and large and small group seminars
Postgraduate Teaching
Composition
1/1 teaching and small group seminars
Research Supervision
Present Composition PhD students
Dan Baczkowski
Emma Clarke
Suting Han
Past Composition PhD students
Amir Konjani
Aled Smith
Gillian Menichino
Emma Ruth Richards
Jacob Thompson Bell
Lucy Pankhurst
Isabelle Guiterrez
Matthew Brown
Caroline Bordignon
Selected Outputs
- Opera – The Path to Heaven, libretto by Ben Kaye: Lawrence Opera Kansas USA August 11 2024.
- Featured composer at Sherborne summer school August 2024. 4 of my Wind Ensemble pieces performed. Including talks to composition and conducting students.
- A Composers Day, words by Thomas Pitfield. May 18th 2024. St. Elizabeth’s Church, Ashley. Lesley Jane Rogers, soprano; Richard Simpson, oboe; John Turner, recorder; Flora White, Harp.
- Quicksilver premiered by the Rosamund Brass Quartet first performed at the RNCM November 3rd 2023. Several subsequent performances including St Martin in the Fields in November 2024.
- Long Distance Call for Saxophone Solo for the Australian Saxophonist Katia Beaugeais; premiere: December 9th 2023 at the World Saxophone Congress in Las Palmas.
- Composer/Conductor in Residence, Elder Conservatorium Wind Orchestra – October 15th 2023. Two of my Wind Ensemble works: Bells Across the Atlantic and Tranquility.Featured composer, Elder Conservatorium. Serenade for Spring Australian premiere October 6th 2023 at the Elder Conservatorium with the Elder Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jase Scott.
- Teaching at universities in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney in October 2023
- Ballade Chetham’s summer school August 21st 2023 Graham Scott piano
- Beggars Belief, song cycle with words by Ben Kaye; June 17th 2023. Yuliya Trishkeu, soprano; Yifan Ma piano; Wigmore Hall, London
- Teaching – Ithaca College and Cornell University (USA) March 2023
- Out of the Darkness, premiere Cleveland Winds Ensemble (USA) conducted by Matthew Marsit; March 5th 2023. Subsequent performances in Switzerland and Australia.
- Concerto for Violin, Viola and Wind Ensemble. Premiere April 21st 2022 at the University of Georgia (USA.) Michael Heald, violin and Maggie Snyder, viola, University of Georgia Wind Ensemble conducted by Jaclyn Hartenberger.Teaching in universities in Atlanta and Athens Georgia (USA) April 2022.
- 24 Preludes and Velocity – CD of piano music – Clare Hammond, piano. Released March 2022. Premiere of all 24 preludes, Clare Hammond and RNCM students June 21st 2023 RNCM
- Kol Simcha Suite Premiere October 8th 2021. Psappha ensemble; Halle St. Peters Manchester.
Professional Activity
Adam is well known as a world leader in compositions for Wind Ensemble: Three Wind Ensemble works: Towards Nirvana (2002), Adrenaline City (2006) and Farewell (2008) have won British Composer Awards. He has had pieces commissioned by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Marines and the Tokyo Kosei Wind ensemble. Farewell has been performed in the UK, USA, Singapore and Taiwan. Many of his other Wind Ensemble works are played regularly world wide.
In 2012 his opera Anya 17 was premiered with the RLPO 10/10 ensemble to very positive reviews and the work won an award in the House of Commons for ‘Best stage or Screen production Dealing with Human Trafficking.’ The work has had productions at opera houses in Romania and Germany and in the USA.
In recent years Adam’s music has been featured at Oxford University in 2014, at the World Association of Symphonic Wind Bands and Ensembles in San Jose USA in July 2015, at Chetham’s Summer festival and Daejeng university in South Korea in 2019.
In 2016 In Solitude, for Company was premiered by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Clark Rundell in January. The year also saw a CD devoted to his work his work Dancing in the Ghetto released on the Prima Facie label featuring the RLPO 10/10 ensemble, Manchester Camerata and the RNCM Wind Ensemble.
2017-18 was mainly taken up with the composition of The Path to Heaven: Adam Gorb’s fourth collaboration with the librettist Ben Kaye. This full length opera on the subject of the Holocaust in one act for a cast of seven and an ensemble of 15 wind, brass and percussion instruments was premiered at the Howard Assembly Room in Leeds and the RNCM in June 2018 with a cast from the RNCM and an ensemble of players from Psappha and the RNCM conducted by Mark Heron. The opera was directed by Stefan Janski. There were further productions in the USA in 2019, 2020 and 2024.
2021 saw the premiere of Kol Simcha Suite by Psappha and also by the Elon University New Music ensemble in the USA. 24 Preludes for piano was premiered in June 2022 at the RNCM by Clare Hammond and RNCM students, and the CD recording was released in March 2022 on the Toccata label.
Concerto for Violin and Viola for Maggie Snyder and Michael Heald premiered at the University of Georgia (USA) in April 2022 and Out of the Darkness for Wind Ensemble by Cleveland Winds in March 2023.
