About

Composer, performer, and music teacher.

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Adam Zuckerman is a composer and instrumentalist working with acoustic, electronic, and environmental materials in the creation of scores, recordings, performances, and installations. His work is inspired and motivated by a wide range of interests, including: perception and its ambiguities; the experience of time and memory; presence and absence; the conditions and perceptual limits of change, difference, and gradual transformation; the intangible yet very real perceptual shifts in the atmosphere of a space; noise, both as a reflection of the incidental sounds and experiences of everyday life and also as the totality of sounds and experiences. Above all, Adam considers music to be a reiteration and coalescence of the creative impulses and processes of the world. His music attempts to hear some aspect of this world as it also seeks to hold open an immersive space for listening, reflection, and imagination.

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Adam's work has been performed and/or presented by ensembles, labels, and organizations such as Arts Letters & Numbers, Blanton Museum of Art, Coaxial Arts, Distat Terra Festival, Ensemble Dal Niente, Escuta Aqui Festival, Facere Collective, High Desert Soundings, L.A. Electroacoustic Ensemble (LAEE), NCTMMRN, Nueni Recs, Project [Blank], Quartetto Maurice, San Diego New Music, Unwrinkled Ear Concert Series, wasteLAnd Ensemble, Yarn/Wire, and others.

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Recent projects include: STARPERMEABLE, a studio album out on Nueni Records ; The eternal oak., a staged solo performance piece premiered at 2220 Arts + Archives ; and shade , illumination, a solo cello piece commissioned by cellist Peter Ko with the support of San Diego New Music.

 

Before moving to San Diego, Adam was active in the independent music scene in Los Angeles, where he also organized and curated several concert series: including a series in outdoor public spaces and an another in collaboration with a local after-school music program. The latter served to bridge the generational gap between professional musicians and elementary, middle, and high school musicians.

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In addition to collaborations with other musicians, Adam has worked with visual artists, writers, filmmakers, and choreographers – including having composed and recorded the music for Lupines Will Abound, a film by Cody Edison which, through a poetic documentary style, explores the impact of fires on the environment of Southern California. Adam has also been part of the team at Soap Ear, a quarterly online journal dedicated to sound art. He is the primary copy-writer for Dinzu Artefacts.

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As a teacher, Adam has taught composition, theory, piano, guitar, and violin to students of all ages and skill levels for nearly a decade. Until recently, he was on faculty at the Santa Monica Conservatory of Music, where he initiated a theory/composition class for middle and high school students. He has also worked at public elementary and middle schools for their after-school music programs.

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Adam holds a BM in music composition and a BA in Ancient Greek from the Bard College and Conservatory of Music, and an MFA in music composition and experimental sound practices from California Institute of the Arts. Adam also studied for two years at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst (KUG) in Graz, Austria, but left without a degree. Adam is currently a PhD student in composition at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD).

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For inquiries about commissions, performances, collaborations, music lessons, copy-writing/editing, or anything else, please visit the Contact page.

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