Born in London in 1971, Thomas Adès studied piano and composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and read music at King’s College, Cambridge.   Renowned as both a composer and a performer he works regularly with the world’s leading opera companies and festivals.  

Recent conducting engagements include a tour with the Britten Sinfonia, concerts with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the Gulbenkian Orchestra as part of his Gulbenkian Foundation Residency, the London Symphony and Sao Paulo State Symphony Orchestras, his debut with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra, Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, the BBC, Finnish and Danish Radio Symphony Orchestras, the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (whose Music Director he was between 1998 and 2000), the London Sinfonietta, Ensemble Modern and the Athelas Ensemble.

He recently conducted productions of The Rake’s Progress at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and Zurich Opera.  His most recent piano engagements include a recital at Carnegie Hall with Ian Bostridge, and an appearance with Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic. In 2010 he undertook a piano recital tour that included Carnegie Hall, and London’s Barbican Centre featured the premiere of his new piano work Concert Paraphrase from Powder Her Face.  2010/11 saw Adès return to Australia as an artist in residence at the Melbourne Festival.  Future plans include concerts with the Accademia Santa Cecilia in Rome, Barry’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” with the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, and a piano recital at the Festival de Saint Denis.

Between 1993 and 1995 he was Composer in Association with the Hallé Orchestra, which resulted in The Origin of the Harp (1994) and These Premises Are Alarmed for the opening of the Bridgewater Hall in 1996. Asyla (1997) was a Feeney Trust commission for Sir Simon Rattle and the CBSO who performed it at Symphony Hall in August 1998 in Rattle’s last concert as Music Director.   From 1999-2008 he was Artistic Director of the Aldeburgh Festival.

Adès’ first opera, Powder Her Face (commissioned by Almeida Opera for the Cheltenham Festival in 1995), has been performed all around the world, was televised by Channel Four, and is available on a DVD as well as an EMI CD. Most of the composer’s music has been recorded by EMI, with whom Adès has a contract as composer, pianist and conductor. Adès’ second opera, The Tempest, was commissioned by the Royal Opera House and was premiered under the baton of the composer to great critical acclaim in February 2004. It was revived at Covent Garden in 2007 – again with the composer conducting and to a sold-out house - and has also been performed in Copenhagen, Strasbourg and Santa Fe. Recently released to outstanding reviews, The Tempest is also available on an EMI CD and in France, the disc was recently awarded the prestigious Diapason d’Or de l’année and the 2010 Classical Brit Award for Composer of the Year. In September 2005 his violin concerto, Concentric Paths, written for Anthony Marwood, was premiered at the Berliner Festspiele and the BBC Proms, with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe under his baton. His second orchestral work for Simon Rattle, Tevot, (2007) was commissioned by the Berliner Philharmoniker and Carnegie Hall. 

Appointed to the Richard and Barbara Debs Composer Chair at Carnegie Hall for 2007/8, he was featured as composer, conductor and pianist throughout that season.  Adès’ most recent works include a ‘Piano concerto with moving image’ entitled In Seven Days, a collaboration with video artist Tal Rosner, commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and London’s Southbank Centre and Lieux Retrouvés, a work for ‘cello and piano written for Steven Isserlis and commissioned by Aldeburgh Festival and Wigmore Hall.

Adès’ music has attracted numerous awards and prizes, including the prestigious Grawemeyer Award (in 2000, for Asyla), of which he is the youngest ever recipient.