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  30 Aug 19 Winterreise CD Ian Bostridge
  

  “Right from the footstep tread launching the first song, Adès’s piano accompaniment never falters in its imaginative response to imagery and emotional mood, sometimes acting in counterpoint, sometimes allied. Frozen teardrops? A barking dog? The leaves on a tree? We see them in sound. Elsewhere, it’s their sheer detachment that make Adès’s notes so devastating, helping to build the cycle’s mounting atmosphere of desolation — one unresolved by the organ-grinder’s cryptic appearance in the final song.”

  ★★★★★

  Geoff Brown,The Times, August 2019

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  26 May 19 Beethoven/Barry Beethoven Cycle with Britten Sinfonia
  

  Beethoven Symphonies No. 7 & 8, Saffron Hall

  “The Beethoven symphonies around the premiere were more of what we have come to expect from Adès and this orchestra – vivid, modern performances and bursting with rhythmic life.”
  ★★★★
  Andrew Clements, The Guardian, May 2019

  Beethoven Symphony No. 9, Barbican Centre

  “If you wished for music-making joyously uplifting and rejuvenating, yet also red in tooth and claw, here it was.”
  ★★★★
  Geoff Brown, The Times, May 2019

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  17 Mar 19 Adès and Gerstein piano duo
  Jordan Hall

  “Ravel’s “La Valse,” the final piece, was the concert’s high point. The two were at their mind-melded best, bewitching in their rendition of the dreamy, sumptuous waltz and the grotesque currents of darkness that grasped it, conjuring up a danse macabre for a world whirling off its axis.”

  Zoë Madonna, The Boston Globe, March 19

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  22 Jul 18 ADES/SIBELIUS Boston Symphony Orchestra
  Tanglewood Festival

  …composer Thomas Adès led the Boston Symphony Orchestra in a revelatory performance of two works by Sibelius alongside his own music, the “Powder Her Face” Suite, repeated from performances earlier this year in Symphony Hall.
  As a conductor, Adès is by now experienced enough to communicate his ideas effectively to the orchestra. But he doesn’t wave a baton nearly enough to have any aspect of his performances come across as routine. In fact, his account of Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony Sunday had that elusive crackle of generative energy, as if the work were not being simply re-performed yet again but rather re-assembled from scratch before our ears.
  Adès has long had a special affinity for Sibelius and, in particular, the elemental sense of creative struggle he hears in this composer’s music and transmits so aptly, the churning depths beneath the pristine surfaces. The BSO played brilliantly for him on Sunday, and there was a daring quality to the placement of the symphony’s enormous final chords, a sense that the silence was not empty interstitial space but a compositional element chiseled into being no less forcefully than the surrounding music.
  In Sibelius’s Violin Concerto, Adès showed a similar knack for defamiliarizing aspects of the orchestral accompaniment… All in all, it was an extraordinary outing.
  Jeremy Eichler, Boston Globe, 24 July 2018

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  26 Oct 17 ADÈS The Exterminating Angel
  Metropolitan Opera

  “If you go to a single production this season, make it this one.”

  Anthony Tommasini, New York Times, 27 October 2017

  “Seldom has a dramatic work come to more vivid life in its musical realization. Adès’ latest is a masterpiece in every sense; with two stirring successes under his belt, he’s established an impressive track record of presenting major new works at the Met, albeit after previous showings elsewhere. Sooner or later, the company ought to take a real chance and offer an Adès world premiere.”

  Eric C. Simpson, New York Classical Review, 27 October 2017

  “With a cast of dozens and a sweeping modernistic score conducted by the composer, The Exterminating Angel has been awaited with such high expectations that its arrival has gained the status of a major cultural event in New York’s music world.”

  Wilborn Hampton, Huffington Post, 27 October 2017

  “The highly anticipated American première of Thomas Adès The Exterminating Angel was an eminent success, with singers, orchestra, and staging all in top form … Like Buñuel’s film, The Exterminating Angel resists explanation, and the ambiguity of the story drives much of its compelling nature. Superb execution all around, from Adès’ conducting, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra’s playing, Tom Cairn’s simple yet powerful production, and a top-notch cast of singers made for a highly captivating and memorable performance.”

  ★★★★ Vishnu Bachani, Bachtrack, 28 October 2017

  “For now, Adès’s opera has staked its claim, even at the gigantic Met.”

  ★★★★ John Rockwell, Financial Times, 31 October 2017

  “Ades was on the podium in a stellar performance from the Met orchestra and a cast that couldn’t be bettered in putting across the sometimes-complexly modern, sometimes-pastiche (but rarely dull) score. Who knows when the Met will mount it again, so it’s worth taking a look and listen.”

  Richard Sasanow, Broadway World, 01 November 2017

  “This thoroughly engrossing production, which I’d happily see again, is an encouraging sign of the vitality of opera as a compelling contemporary medium”

  Joshua Rosenblum, Zeal NYC, 01 November 2017

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  26 May 17 BEETHOVEN/BARRY Beethoven Cycle with Britten Sinfonia
  

  St Andrew’s Hall, Norwich

  “In the opening concert of his project with the Britten Sinfonia (which will take place over three years), Adès as conductor showed the precise nature of his abilities – by making Beethoven’s tried and tested 1^st and 2^nd Symphonies seem as fresh and innovative as they must have done when they were unleashed on an unsuspecting public over 200 years ago.”

  ★★★★ Ben Lawrence, The Telegraph, 15 June 2017

   

  Saffron Hall, Saffron Walden

  “In a different way, the first two Beethoven symphonies that followed seemed strikingly original, too. With an orchestra of more than 40 players, unprecedented for the Britten Sinfonia, Adès’s performances were emphatically modern ones. The use of hard sticks for the timpani seem to be the only concession to period niceties, but tempi were brisk, and vibrato was never overdone, so that the textures always remained wonderfully detailed and teemed with rhythmic life. Every bar of each symphony seemed thrillingly restored, honed down to their muscular core.”

  ★★★★ Andrew Clements, The Guardian, 30 May 2017

   

  Barbican Centre, London

  2 June Concert:

  “The Symphony no. 1 in C major opened with powerful pizzicato, clean and full. Tempi were bracing, no stately classical pomposity from Adès; rather, a sense of drama, particularly in the way he emphasised the woodwind against the strings. The brass was more collegiate than domineering, and there was a thrilling bite to the strings in the Andante. Adès spun out the tension in the opening to the fourth movement; his control seemed to be tight here, allowing for strong definition within the orchestra. This was probably the most enjoyable reading of the symphony I’ve heard; fresh, original and full of detail… Simply unmissable!”

  ★★★★ Dominic Lowe, Bachtrack, 4 June 2017

  6 June, Concert:

  “The Scherzo third movement was the most successful, Adès here allowing the woodwind soloists to fill out phrases, that continuity of line effectively balancing the rhythmic impulse from the podium: rare moments of lyrical beauty in an otherwise breathless and unrelenting account.”

  Gavin Dixon, The Art Desk, 7 June 2017

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  24 Apr 17 ADÈS The Exterminating Angel
  The Royal Opera House

  “Ades’ opera is a triumph: his finest stage work so far. Part of its strength lies in his ability to add texture – both poetic and psychological – to that of the film. Whereas Buñuel’s characters are sometimes difficult to tell apart, Ades’ are clearly differentiated, the music fleshing out their quirks and quiddities.”

  ★★★★Barry Millington, Evening Standard, 25 April 2017

  “It is at once surreal, mysterious, macabre and threatening, and Adès’s score is all these things and more. He draws on sources as far-flung as Strauss waltzes, Spanish flamenco and Hebrew songs, and piles them up with shattering power. Buñuel’s avenging angel, the score seems to say, has been with us always and everywhere, and its force is undimmed. Adès’s capacity for invention here is nothing less than prodigious. You come out with your head spinning with music.”

  ★★★★Richard Fairman, Financial Times, 25 April 2017

  “There is no doubting Adès’s astonishing dexterity and perspicacity, nowhere more evident than in his inventive handling of the large orchestral forces, comprising piano, guitar and a whole arsenal of percussion.”

  Claire Seymour, Opera Today, 25 April 2017

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  03 Mar 17 ADÈS Asyla, Pevot, Polaris CD
  

  “What strikes one most about these performances is how brilliantly Adès, as composer and also as conductor, marshals what often seem like collisions of contradictory ideas into cogent and compelling structures.”

  Richard Morrison, The Times, 3 March 2017

  “With Adès conducting, the London Symphony Orchestra reaches for the stars.”

  ★★★★★ Richard Fairman, Financial Times, 3 March 2017

  “These are works that demonstrate not only Adès’ genius, but also his wit.”

  Daniel Spehen Johnson, Q2 Music, 13 March 2017

  “Thomas Adès has become. arguably and justifiably, England’s most prominent living composer.”

  Audiophile Audition, 8 April 2017

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  16 Aug 16 Prom Britten Sinfonia
  The Royal Albert Hall

  “Bertolt Brecht said that “Mixing one’s wines may be a mistake, but old and new wisdom mix admirably”. In an inspired bit of programming, this Prom saw old and new works mixing very well indeed. As an added dimension, the two symphonies performed in this concert expressed new wisdom for their time but were also indebted to the old wisdom of Haydn and the classical tradition…Adès drew out of the orchestra all the subtle nuances required, and encouraged tremendous attack and bite in the more gritty sections”
  Bachtrack, Mark Thomas

  “Two recent string concertos featured in the Britten Sinfonia’s Prom underThomas Adès, one of them by the conductor himself. Originally written in 2009 as a piece for cello and piano, Lieux Retrouvés (Places Revisited) was heard in a new version for cello and small orchestra…Isserlis brought subtlety and conviction to the piece.”
  The Guardian, George Hall

  “The effect in the Hall was ear-tickling, even poignant.”
  Classical Source, David Gutman

  “Two pieces written in recent years were framed by two symphonies in this Prom from the Britten Sinfonia, conducted by Thomas Adès. Together they created an interesting programme…Thomas Adès originally wrote Lieux retrouvés, Op. 26 as a cello sonata in 2009…With the piece conducted by the person who naturally understood it better than anyone else, and the soloist being Steven Isserlis for whom Adès had originally written the work, we felt we were experiencing the definitive performance of the piece.”

  MusicOMH, Sam Smith

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  28 Jul 16 ADÈS The Exterminating Angel
  Salzburg Festival

  “Adès’s score is brilliant’…Thomas Adès’s new opera is musically dazzling… This is utterly assured writing, clever, effective, dazzling, complex… This is athletic, demanding music which is performed with polish and flair.”
  Shirley Apthorp, Financial Times, 29 July 2016

  “Adès delivers unmissable operatic adaptation
  The composer-conductor offers some of his most powerful orchestral writing in this pared down but magnificent take on Luis Buñuel’s surrealist film….With Adès himself conducting the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, that music is constantly fascinating.”
  Andrew Clements, The Guardian, 29 July 2016

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  09 Mar 16 LSO Composer Focus
  Barbican Centre

  “As conductor, Adès shone in the difficult task of accompanying the volatile piece [Brahms Violin Concerto/Anne-Sophie Mutter]
  Both pieces [Polaris and Tevot] – the first described as a voyage for orchestra, the second referring to Noah’s Ark and the cradle which carried the baby Moses down the river – comprise musical journeys, and both also emphasise Adès’s ability to write for orchestra with a sumptuousness of texture, a colouristic range and an immediacy of idea that a composer of film scores might envy. The performances under the composer’s baton proved authoritative.”
  George Hall, The Guardian, 10 March 2016
  
  “Adès writes so brilliantly for orchestra. Fascinatingly multilayered textures are marshalled into admirably cogent structures, which he clarifies even further with his idiosyncratic but effective conducting.”
  Richard Morrison, The Times, 10 March 2016
  
  “Thomas Adès, Anne-Sophie Mutter and the LSO ravish the Barbican with an outstanding programme of Adès and Brahms

  Thomas Adès, in the first concert of his mini Composer Focus with the LSO, conducted three of his own works and one by Brahms, displayed why he is one of the hottest musical properties in the UK at the moment. This is a supremely gifted musician who knows what he wants to say and has the technical ability to say it, both as composer, conductor and accompanist.”
  Chris Garlick, BachTrack, 10 March 2016

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  12 Jan 15 SCHUBERT Winterreise Barbican Centre
  With Ian Bostridge

  “Adès proved a fully equal partner, whose own contribution was regularly understated but also managed to reveal much of the music’s character, while remaining deftly fluent. Notable throughout was his subtle balancing of the piano part’s internal voices, including his highlighting of vital secondary lines. In Frühlingstraum he travelled from the infinite delicacy of the innocent opening melody to the dull thud of the concluding chord. He found sepulchral sonorities in Das Wirtshaus, eerie half-lights in Die Krähe, and communicated marvellously the deceptive simplicity of Täuschung.”
  George Hall, The Guardian, 13 January 2015

  “This was without doubt the most extraordinary, riveting, uncanny performance of Schubert’s great song-cycle Winterreise I have ever witnessed… It fell to pianist Thomas Adès to paint these varied scenes, which he did with remarkable artistry and the precision and delicacy of a watercolourist. When he allowed a deeper, stronger tone to break through, the effect was startling: as in Irrlicht (Will-o’-the-wisp), where he took us for a moment into Janácek’s heart-stoppingly intense world.
  This contrast between singer and pianist created a lovely emotional chiaroscuro…one must salute the unbelievable cumulative intensity these two achieved, honed to a fine point in the final song Der Leiermann (The Hurdy-Gurdy Man), rendered with a frozen slowness that was both startling and exactly right.”
  Ivan Hewett, The Telegraph, 13 January 2015

  “An unforgettable concert,with Thomas Ades providing an accompaniment of exquisite delicacy and suggestiveness.
  …what riveted us was not so much Bostridge’s beauty of tone as the emotional truth of every line, underscored as it was by Ades’s refined pianism. Unforgettable.”
  Michael Church, The Independent, 13 January 2015

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  30 Oct 14 ADÈS See the Music, Hear the Dance
  Sadler's Wells Theatre

  “Sadler’s Wells has been presenting an ambitious programme of choreography set to the music of the entrancingly inventive Thomas Adès… Polaris shows the talented Pite working at an exceptional level of confidence. It also reminds us that someone (Millepied perhaps) needs to commission Adès to write a designated dance score.”

  Judith Mackrell, The Guardian, 2 November 2014
  
  “The title of this programme of dance set to the music of Thomas Adès is a quotation from the celebrated choreographer George Balanchine about his collaborations with Stravinsky. And it doesn’t feel too fanciful to see this inventive, pioneering British composer as a Stravinsky of our time, putting his music at the service of dance.
  These four works, made to pre-existing Adès scores, also prove another Balanchine adage that “dance is music made visible.” They transform and reveal the music in exciting new ways.
  Throughout, the playing of the Britten Sinfonia is outstanding (with Thomas Gould a dazzling violin soloist) and it is a pure pleasure to see Adès, whether conducting or playing the piano, responding to the dance and the dancers.
  It is, then, an outstanding evening.”
  Sarah Crompton, The Telegraph, 1 November 2014

  “Contemporary dance and contemporary music meet in an eager tryst between composer Thomas Adès and an assortment of choreographers. Four works, two new commissions, 78 dancers, a vast orchestra in the pit and Adès himself at the piano. It’s a sensory feast…
  Pite had to come up with a big idea to match the eponymous score, which is cinematic in scope, sci-fi in tone; what a 21st-century Star Wars should sound like. She corrals a cast of 64 who move as a single organism, black-clad bodies swarming on stage like a thick murmuration of starlings. They swell and huddle, pulsating like bubbling tar, falling in domino effect, all subtly, beautifully lit. A fantastic finale.”
  Lyndsey Winship, Evening Standard, 3 November 2014
  
  “What a remarkable pleasure it is to hear music of this calibre and complexity used for contemporary dance… I was delighted and intrigued by the seriousness and richness of Adés’s scores when I started listening to them before the show. An even greater pleasure awaited at Sadler’s: the very fine playing of the Britten Sinfonia…
  Huge scope and spectacle definitely brought the dance out on top here, matching the theatricality of Adès’s score (played from corners of the auditorium as well as from the pit, with the composer himself at the baton) with something just as impressive.”
  Hanna Weibye, The Arts Desk, 1 November 2014

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  22 Jun 14 Schubert 'Winterreise' With Ian Bostridge
  Snape Maltings Concert Hall

  “…it was an evening enhanced by the generosity of both musicians. In “Der Lindenbaum” (“The Linden Tree”), a song of bleak nostalgia and fleeting sweetness, there were alternating flourishes, Adès barely leaving an impression on the keys during the heartbreaking third verse, then attacking the piano interludes with propulsive focus.”
  Laura Battle, The Financial Times, 24 June 2014

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  11 Jun 14 CBSO - June 2014
  Symphony Hall Birmingham

  “Ades began his programme with Ravel’s Mother Goose ballet, beautifully shaped and glowing… double-basses wonderfully grunting under Ades’ fluid, flickering baton….But best of all was Ades’ own Tevot, scored for a huge orchestra (seven percussionists, no less), resonances of Mahler and Holst, and its textures and sonorities scything with accents. It ends with warm triumph, like Roy Harris’ Third Symphony of nearly a century ago.”
  Christopher Morley, The Birmingham Post, 12 June 2014
  
  “Adès’s return to Symphony Hall showed that his rapport with the orchestra is still there, and that his knack of devising programmes that are both attractive and innovative is as potent as ever.”
  Andrew Clements, The Guardian, 12 June 2014
  
  “This yoking together of the exquisite and the over-intense bore all the hallmarks of the big-framed, eagerly gesturing musician on the podium: Thomas Adès. He is an enthusiast for extremes, and this programme reflected that. Never did Ravel’s piece sound cosy, as it often does. Adès made it seem urgent and almost dangerous – as indeed it is, when Beauty has her conversation with the Beast.”
  Ivan Hewett, The Telegraph, 22 June

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  17 Jul 13 BBC Proms ADÈS 'Totentanz' World Premiere
  Royal Albert Hall

  “In the closing pages death and humanity seem to reach a truce in a passage of almost Straussian lyricism, Adès’s most frankly expressive music to date, but it proves only temporary and the work ends in the lowest depths of the orchestra, having worked its way downwards…The performance was wonderfully compelling, with the BBCSO revelling in the virtuoso challenges Adès sets them, and the soloists giving their roles an almost operatic vividness…Adès had begun with Britten’s Sinfonia da Requiem, unleashing its fury with frightening vividness, as if anticipating the dance of death that would come later.”
  Andrew Clements, The Guardian, 18 July 2013
  
  “…in a series of increasingly pretty after-echoes, the collateral damage is cleared away, and we find ourselves in a cleansed and beguiling sound-world which might have been created by Mahler in one of his serenely visionary moods…
  It makes huge demands on the baritone and mezzo-soprano who must carry the drama and hold their own against the percussion-heavy orchestra, but in Simon Keenlyside and Christianne Stotijn Tom Ades had struck gold: both made utterly convincing sense of their daunting melodic lines, often in grotesque duet: Keenlyside’s suggesting giant inexorability, and Stotijn’s a nightmarish torment. On the podium, Ades was able to bring out both the savagery and the beauty of his score, but I suggest that he doesn’t stop there: with a suitably Expressionist staging, this could make a very effective one-act opera.”
  Michael Church, The Independent, 18 July 2013

  “It was only a matter of time before Adès, British music’s Lord of the Dance, wrote a Totentanz, and the result achieves all the macabre giddiness you might expect, liberally laced with fragments of the Dies Irae planchaint…Totentanz is a major work, and one that has a natural place in the repertoire alongside the big orchestral song cycles and symphonies of the late German Romantics. Surely this will be one Proms premiere with a real afterlife.”
  Alexandra Coghlan, The Arts Desk, 18 July 2013