Adam Swayne

Pianist, composer and musicologist Dr Adam Swayne has been working at the forefront of performance and research for several years.

Having gained his doctorate as a Fulbright Scholar in the USA, his solo recordings focus on societal issues in North American culture.  In April 2019 BBC Music Magazine named his solo recital CD (speak to me): new music new politics as Instrumental Monthly Choice. BBC Radio 3’s Record Review said that it is “brave … flamboyant … a cleverly designed, exuberantly performed and arresting exercise in putting the politics back into the piano recital”. It was the only CD to be nominated in two categories at the 2019 Opus Klassik awards in Germany. His second CD was a commemorative recital for the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and was launched with a concert at the Wigmore Hall on September 11th 2021. He has since commissioned a number of works exploring music and commemoration, and a book chapter for Routledge is currently in progress.

Adam’s musicological interests focus on the performance and culture surrounding the nineteenth century concerto and include (re)discovery of works by German composer Ferdinand Ries. His doctoral thesis was an edition and commentary of Ries’s Piano Concerto No.3 Op.55, and in 2026 A-R Editions published a newly discovered first version of Ries’s Piano Concerto No.6 Op.123.

As the pianist for the Riot Ensemble, Adam performs several premieres every year at major international festivals. He has worked with all the major composers of our times. The Times described him as ‘a pianist of formidable technique and high intelligence’ and the Evening Standard as ‘the ideal blend of panache and subtlety’.

• Piano Performance
• Composition and Contemporary Music
• Music and Society
• Music of the Nineteenth Century

Adam commissions and records new works within adventurous programmes of solo piano music. His recording ‘(speak to me) new music new politics’, released in January 2019 on the Coviello label, included premiere recordings of Amy Beth Kirsten (Juilliard School) and Kevin Malone (University of Manchester) alongside works by Rzewski, Gershwin and Gould. The social and political investigations of the CD were presented at the University of Memphis (‘Balancing the Mix’ conference, 30/03/19), Northwestern University, (solo recital, 04/04/19) and also resulted in an additional new work from Malone, premiered at the Stoller Hall in Manchester (09/08/24). Adam worked again with Malone on ‘Sudden Memorials’, an extended and theatrical work premiered at the Wigmore Hall on the twentieth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. This formed part of a wider exploration into how musicians undertake commemoration, resulting in another solo recording ‘9/11:20’ released by Coviello in 2021 (including works by Karen Walwyn (Berklee College of Music), Del Tredici, Joplin and Cowell) and a 2024 work by Nina Whiteman (RHUL) ‘Earthed’.

Adam is also a musicologist specialising in 19th century concertos. His edition and commentary of the previously unseen first version of Ferdinand Ries’s Op.123 Piano Concerto (1806) is published by A-R Editions. He also presented this research at the ‘Financing Music in Europe from the 18th to the Early 20th Century’ conference in Lucca, Italy in 2020. As a performer, Adam has presented in recent seasons concertos by Ireland, Gregson, Grieg, Rachmaninov and double concertos by Mozart and Elliott Carter.

As pianist of the Riot Ensemble, Adam presents a large number of ensemble premieres every year, many of them internationally. Recent performances include the SPOR Festival (Denmark), MaerzMusik (Germany), Time of Music (Finland), Klangspuren (Austria) and Mixtur (Spain) alongside Brighton, Aldeburgh and HCMF (UK).