Byron Adams (born 1955) is an American composer, conductor, and musicologist.
Education
Adams received his Bachelor of Music degree from Jacksonville University, his Master of Music degree from the University of Southern California, and his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Cornell University.
Career
Adams is a composer of tonal music who employs individual adaptations of traditional techniques. His music has been performed at the 26th Warsaw Autumn International Festival of Contemporary Music, Bargemusic, the Da Camera Society of Los Angeles, and the Conservatoire Américain in Fontainebleau, France (where he taught in the summer of 1992), as well as by such ensembles as Cantus, the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra, and the Philharmonia Orchestra.
As a musicologist, Adams specializes in British and French music of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His essays have appeared in multiple journals such as The Musical Quarterly for which he has also served on the editorial board as an associate editor since 2009, and Music & Letters.
In 2007, he was appointed scholar-in-residence and a member of the program committee for the Bard Music Festival, for which he was the editor of Edward Elgar and His World (Princeton, 2007), in addition to giving pre-concert lectures and contributing program notes. Other notable organizations for which he has written programs notes include the Philadelphia Orchestra and the American Symphony Orchestra, among others. In 2013, Adams was appointed one of the series editors for Music in Britain 1600–2000, published by the Boydell Press.
Academic career
Adams holds the rank of Distinguished Professor at the University of California, Riverside, Department of Music, where he served as department chair from 2002 to 2005. Adams was a guest lecturer at Gresham College, London, in December 2007, while he was a visiting fellow for the Institute of Musical Research, School of Advanced Studies of the University of London.
Honors, awards, and offices
Recognition of Adams's compositions began early in his career. In 1977, he won the Grand Prize of the Delius Festival Composition Competition. In 1984, he was awarded an ASCAP Raymond Hubbell Award for his compositions, and in 1985 he was the recipient of the inaugural Ralph Vaughan Williams Fellowship. Equally appreciated for his work as a musicologist, Adams was the recipient of the American Musicological Society's Philip Brett Award in 2000 for his essay "The 'Dark Saying' of the Enigma: Homoeroticism and the Elgarian Paradox", published in Nineteenth-Century Music and the book chapter "'No Armpits, Please, We're British': Whitman and English Music, 1884–1936", in Walt Whitman and Modern Music: War, Desire and the Trials of Nationhood, both published that same year.
From 2006-2009 Adams served first as vice president (2006–07) and then as president of the North American British Music Studies Association, where he was later inducted as a lifetime honorary member in 2020. In 2008, the association instituted the Byron Adams Student Travel Grant, a fellowship offering assistance to conference presenters.
In 2010 Adams was named one of Jacksonville University's "Distinguished Dolphins" (a distinguished alumnus award for excellence), one of only 75 to receive this honor since the founding of the university up to that year.
Selected list of compositions
Publishers of works by Byron Adams include Earthsongs, Fatrock Ink, Editions BIM, Paraclete Press, and E.C. Schirmer
Orchestral works
Monteverdiana for string orchestra (2021) Concerto for French Horn and Strings (2020) Overture to a Lyric Comedy for string orchestra (2003) Concerto for violoncello and orchestra (2001) Ballade for piano and orchestra (1999) Midsummer Music for orchestra (1998) Suite from Twelfth Night for flute, harp, percussion and strings (1995) Capriccio concertante for orchestra (1991)
Chamber works
String Quartet no. 1 "Ommagio a Monteverdi" (2018) Sonata for viola and piano (2012) Serenade for nine instruments (2011) Le Jardin Provençal for flute, oboe, 'cello and harpsichord (2006) Variationes alchemisticae for flute, viola, 'cello, and piano (2005) Suite on Old Nautical Airs for tuba and piano (1999) Sonata for trumpet and piano (1983)
Vocal music
The Vision of Dame Julian of Norwich for soprano, harp, and string quartet (2002) Psalm XXIII for soprano and oboe (2000) Trois Poèmes de Ronsard for soprano, flute, harpsichord and 'cello (1999) Holy Songs for baritone and piano (1998) Quatre Illuminations for soprano and chamber ensemble (1991) Requiem Songs for soprano, violin, and 'cello (1982)