Adam Silverman
Encyclopedia
Adam Benjamin Silverman is a composer of contemporary classical music
. His works include the opera Korczak's Orphans (to a libretto by Susan Gubernat, based on the life of Holocaust martyr from Poland Janusz Korczak
), chamber and orchestral music, and music for the theater. With composers Dennis DeSantis, Roshanne Etezady, and Ken Ueno, he founded the Minimum Security Composers Collective.
with composers such as Ned Rorem
, Kurt Schwertsik
, Ezra Laderman
and Martin Bresnick
. As a student, he was especially interested in the musical system of microtonal
just intonation
, and studied closely with composer Ben Johnston
. His compositions Durham (Triangle Quartet) (1996, for string quartet) and Just Music Makes Me Lose My Temper (1995, for electric guitar, keyboard, and percussion) are just intonation compositions.
After composing Durham (Triangle Quartet), he turned away from just intonation to compose chromatic tonal music. These recent works reflect a variety of influences, including a series inspired by Irish dance music (Corrie Q's Jigs and Reels (String Quartet No. 3), McAllister's Ceilidh, and Spark in the Shoe), Beatles songs (In Another Man's Skin, E Uno Plures) and classical music (Nocturnes and Reveries).
Since 2006, Adam has held the position of Professor of Music Theory and Composition at West Chester University of Pennsylvania.
), Hard Knocks (1999, for orchestra) and stars, cars, bars (1999, for speaking marimbist, based on a passage from Vladimir Nabokov's
"Lolita
"). His works for percussion ensemble -- the quartet "Quick Blood" (2001) and "Gasoline Rainbow" (2009) -- have been played widely at American universities.
Contemporary classical music
Contemporary classical music can be understood as belonging to the period that started in the mid-1970s with the retreat of modernism. However, the term may also be employed in a broader sense to refer to all post-1945 modern musical forms.-Categorization:...
. His works include the opera Korczak's Orphans (to a libretto by Susan Gubernat, based on the life of Holocaust martyr from Poland Janusz Korczak
Janusz Korczak
Janusz Korczak, the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit was a Polish-Jewish children's author, and pediatrician known as Pan Doktor or Stary Doktor...
), chamber and orchestral music, and music for the theater. With composers Dennis DeSantis, Roshanne Etezady, and Ken Ueno, he founded the Minimum Security Composers Collective.
Biography
Beginning his musical career as a rock guitarist and songwriter, he went on to study classical composition at the Vienna Musikhochschule and YaleYALE
RapidMiner, formerly YALE , is an environment for machine learning, data mining, text mining, predictive analytics, and business analytics. It is used for research, education, training, rapid prototyping, application development, and industrial applications...
with composers such as Ned Rorem
Ned Rorem
Ned Rorem is a Pulitzer prize-winning American composer and diarist. He is best known and most praised for his song settings.-Life:...
, Kurt Schwertsik
Kurt Schwertsik
Kurt Schwertsik is an Austrian contemporary composer. He is famous for creating the “Third Viennese School” and spreading contemporary classical music....
, Ezra Laderman
Ezra Laderman
Ezra Laderman is an American composer of classical music.-Biography:His parents, Isidor and Leah, both emigrated to the United States from Poland. Though poor, the family had a piano. Ezra writes, "At four, I was improvising at the piano; at seven, I began to compose music, writing it down...
and Martin Bresnick
Martin Bresnick
Martin Bresnick is a composer of contemporary classical music, film scores and experimental music.-Education and early career:Bresnick was born and raised in the Bronx, and is a graduate of New York City's specialized High School of Music and Art. He was educated at the University of Hartford ,...
. As a student, he was especially interested in the musical system of microtonal
Microtonal music
Microtonal music is music using microtones—intervals of less than an equally spaced semitone. Microtonal music can also refer to music which uses intervals not found in the Western system of 12 equal intervals to the octave.-Terminology:...
just intonation
Just intonation
In music, just intonation is any musical tuning in which the frequencies of notes are related by ratios of small whole numbers. Any interval tuned in this way is called a just interval. The two notes in any just interval are members of the same harmonic series...
, and studied closely with composer Ben Johnston
Ben Johnston
Benjamin Burwell Johnston, Jr. is a composer of contemporary music in the just intonation system.-Johnston's music:...
. His compositions Durham (Triangle Quartet) (1996, for string quartet) and Just Music Makes Me Lose My Temper (1995, for electric guitar, keyboard, and percussion) are just intonation compositions.
After composing Durham (Triangle Quartet), he turned away from just intonation to compose chromatic tonal music. These recent works reflect a variety of influences, including a series inspired by Irish dance music (Corrie Q's Jigs and Reels (String Quartet No. 3), McAllister's Ceilidh, and Spark in the Shoe), Beatles songs (In Another Man's Skin, E Uno Plures) and classical music (Nocturnes and Reveries).
Since 2006, Adam has held the position of Professor of Music Theory and Composition at West Chester University of Pennsylvania.
Works
In addition to Korczak's Orphans, his principal compositions include Sturm (2002, for piano trio), three string quartets (1996, 2000, 2005), In Another Man's Skin (2000, for sextet eighth blackbirdEighth blackbird
eighth blackbird is a Grammy Award-winning contemporary music sextet based in Chicago. The group derives its name from the eighth stanza of Wallace Stevens' poem Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird...
), Hard Knocks (1999, for orchestra) and stars, cars, bars (1999, for speaking marimbist, based on a passage from Vladimir Nabokov's
Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a multilingual Russian novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist...
"Lolita
Lolita
Lolita is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov, first written in English and published in 1955 in Paris and 1958 in New York, and later translated by the author into Russian...
"). His works for percussion ensemble -- the quartet "Quick Blood" (2001) and "Gasoline Rainbow" (2009) -- have been played widely at American universities.
Recordings
- 2011: "Prism Saxophone Quartet: Dedication" Innova Records.
- Includes Adam Silverman: Just A Minute, Chopin
- 2010: "Florida State Percussion Ensemble Volume One" Florida State University.
- Includes Adam Silverman: Gasoline Rainbow
- 2010: "Amy Sue Barston: Memories & Souvenirs" Calabaza Records.
- Includes Adam Silverman: There Comes My Heart
- Includes Adam Silverman: I love my love with a v
- Includes Adam Silverman: Baby Blackbird, Fly Now
- Includes Adam Silverman: The Heart and The Hand (Elegy for Mark Silverman)
- 2009: "Sturm: Compositions by Adam Silverman" New Focus Records.
- Includes Adam Silverman: Sturm, performed by James Stern, Amy Sue Barston and Audrey Andrist.
- Includes Adam Silverman: Nocturnes and Reveries, performed by Audrey Andrist.
- Includes Adam Silverman: Ricochet, performed by Strata.
- Includes Adam Silverman: Corrie Q's Jigs and Reels, performed by the Corigliano Quartet.
- 2007: "Daniel Lippel: "Sustenance." New Focus Records.
- Includes Adam Silverman: Three Fell Swoops.
- 2006: "Lara Downes: "Dream of Me." Tritone Records.
- Includes Adam Silverman: Nocturnes and Reveries.
- 1998: "The Frog Peak Collaborations Project." Frog Peak Records.
- Includes Adam Silverman: Credit is the History of Words Without History.
- 1998: "New Music: Young Composers." Cane Records.
- Includes Adam Silverman: Just Music Makes Me Lose My Temper.