Peter Adams has taught at the University of Otago’s Department of Music since 1990. He has taught theory and analysis, harmony, conducting, and composition. He employs a poly-stylistic language where influences as diverse as jazz, Americana and expressionism are incorporated alongside his own mixed-modal language.
Adams’s early influences were very much shaped by his teacher Jack Speirs’ interest in atonality and serialism, particularly in the work of Anton Webern. Motivic permutation and serialist developmental techniques have remained a constant factor in Adams’s compositionallanguage ever since. His studies with Peter Maxwell-Davies brought an added focus on the architecture of a composition, along with an emphasis on texture and changing sonority, most evident in his brass band and electroacoustic works.
Adams draws inspiration from the light, the sky and the seascapes of his Dunedin home, and often seeks to evoke aspects of these musically through a pan-diatonic, mixed modal language and expressive linear writing. Although music is an imprecise language, it does convey atmospheres, moods and emotions, and Adams wants to evoke these in his music.
Unsurprisingly, after 25 years of conducting brass bands, many of Adams’s works show the influence of the contemporary brass band test piece in their structure. Linked chains of contrasting episodes, all motivically related, are often found in his instrumental works. Since 2010 Adams has concentrated on writing works that explore instrumental technique and sonority whilst refining his freely developmental motivic writing.
