Thomas Ades - Thomas Ads

Thomas Ads is fted from Los Angeles to London, from New York to
Berlin, as the musician who has done more than any other living composer
to connect contemporary music with wider audiences. His operas, orchestral pieces and chamber works have already stood the test of
repeated performances, productions and continued critical acclaim.

But
this celebrated composer, conductor and pianist is notoriously
secretive about his creative process, about what lies behind his
compositional impulse. The poetry, technique and biography that fuel
his most successful and shattering works, such as his operas Powder Her Face and The Tempest, or his orchestral works Asyla and Tevot, have remained hidden and unexplained. Until now.

In
conversation with Tom Service - the writer with whom he has had the
closest relationship in his career - Ads opens up for the first time
about how he creates his music, where it comes from, and what it means.
In these provocative and challenging interviews, Ads connects his music
with influences from a huge historical and cultural spectrum - from
Sephardic Jewish folk music to 80s electronica, from the films of Luis
Buuel and pre-Columbian art to the soundtracks of Al-Qaeda training
videos - and offers a unique insight into the crucible of his
composition.