About

Jake Adams (1996) is a composer, gamelan player, guitarist, teacher and researcher from Brighouse, West Yorkshire, currently based in York. With a history as a heavy metal guitarist who later trained as a contemporary classical composer and Javanese gamelan player, Jake's work explores the process of cross-cultural synthesis in creating music that combines musical elements from different traditions in order to create a new hybrid entity. His work has been performed around the world by soloists and ensembles including Ensemble intercontmporian, Quatuor Diotima, Jasdeep Singh Degun, Cheng Yu, "Tokyo to New York", Darragh Morgan, Alexy Potapov, Gamelan Sekar Petak, Naomi Perera, Skipton Camerata, James McIlwrath, Aulus Duo, Ruth Lee, The Chimera Ensemble and Chinnawatt Themkunkwun. Jake studied composition at the University of York with Martin Suckling, Daniel March, Thomas Simaku and Roger Marsh, and has received lessons from composers including Raphael Cendo, Oscar Bianchi, Joanna Bailie, Sarah Nemstov, Anthony Tan, Yuri Kasparov, Sergej Newski and Aaron Travers. Jake's piece Aanka for classical guitar and fixed media was awarded the Collaboration Prize at the Twisted Spruce Online Symposium 2021, and in 2022 he was awarded the Terry Holmes Composer/Performer Award alongside flautist Naomi Perera to create Where we are now, a new work for solo flautist, chamber orchestra and electronics. Jake is currently undertaking a PhD at the University of York (supervised by Martin Suckling and Daniel March), where he is researching approaches to composing cross-cultural synthesis in a post-colonial world.

Jake performs frequently as both a gamelan player and guitarist, playing a range of music from his own compositions to works by composers including Catherine Lamb, Cameron McArthur, Tom Sissons, Zygmund de Somogyi, Fausto Romitelli, Ginevra House and Emily Crossland. He is the Gamelan Assistant for Gamelan Sekar Petak and directs the New Music Gamelan ensemble at the University of York, having previously directed Gamelan Sumber Laras in Somerset.

In 2019, Jake founded The Arc Project, a collaborative new music initiative based in the north of England. The project focuses on providing a platform for emerging musicians to create music collaboratively in an open environment. As the director of The Arc Project, Jake is passionate about increasing access to new music in the north of England, as well as giving opportunities for musicians to explore their interests with no creative limitations.