Thomas Ades: Full of Noises

An unprecedented glimpse into the creative mind and influences of one of the most intriguing and successful contemporary composers and conductors.

“A brilliant self-analytical plunge into the mind of one of our greatest artists. . . . This book is a probing guide to the creative process, as virtuosic in its way as one of Adès's musical compositions.” -Peter Gelb, general manager, Metropolitan Opera

Composer, conductor, and pianist, Thomas Adès is one of the most diversely talented musical figures of his generation. His music is performed by great opera companies, symphony orchestras, chamber groups, and music festivals throughout the world. But Adès has resisted public discussion of the creative process behind his musical compositions. Until now, the interior experience that has fired the spectrum of his work—from his first opera, Powder Her Face, to his masterpiece The Tempest and his acclaimed orchestral works Asyla and Tevot—has largely remained unexplained. Here, in spirited, intimate, and, at times, contentious conversations with the distinguished music critic Tom Service, Adès opens up about his work. “For Adès, whose literary and artistic sensibilities are nearly as refined and virtuosic as his musical instincts,” writes Service, “inhabiting the different territory of words rather than notes offers a chance to search out new creative correspondences, to open doors—a phrase he often uses—into new ways of thinking in and about music.”

The phrase “full of noises,” from Caliban’s speech in The Tempest, refers both to the sounds “swirling around” Adès’s head that are transmuted into music and to the vast array of his musical influences—from Sephardic folk music to 1980s electronica, to Adès’s passion for Beethoven and Janácek, and his equally visceral dislike of Wagner. It also suggests “the creative friction” essential to any authentic dialogue. As readers of these “wilfully brilliant” conversations will quickly discover, Thomas Adès: Full of Noises brings us into the “revelatory kaleidoscope” of Adès’s world.

“Energetic, honest, and warm, these conversations between friends reveal the intricacies of the creative process and a deep and abiding love of music.” —Publishers Weekly

“Traverse[s] much of the geography of classical music, then and now. . . . Arresting and memorable.” —Kirkus Reviews