Discipline: Music Composition

Adam Silverman

Discipline: Music Composition
Region: Swarthmore, PA
MacDowell Fellowships: 2000, 2001

Adam Silverman is best known for his works for percussion and winds, especially the percussion ensemble compositions Quick Blood, Naked And On Fire, and Sparklefrog, along with his concerto for marimba and wind symphony Carbon Paper and Nitrogen Ink. After study at The University of Miami, The Vienna Musikhochschule, Tanglewood, and Yale, Silverman began his career in the early '00s as a founder of the Minimum Security Composers Collective, collaborating with major ensembles such as Eighth Blackbird and Antares with performances at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall, and other prominent venues. Two full-CD recordings of Silverman's music are available: one of chamber compositions (2009, New Focus Recordings) and one of percussion music (2015, Calabaza Records). Individual compositions of his have also appeared on CDs by the Temple University Wind Symphony, Prism Saxophone Quartet, cellist Amy Sue Barston, Trio Kavak, The Florida State University Percussion Ensemble, and others, all of which are widely available online. Silverman teaches music composition, theory, and orchestration at West Chester University of Pennsylvania and is an amateur enthusiast of old-time American music, playing mandolin and banjo.

Studios

Sprague-Smith

Adam Silverman worked in the Sprague-Smith studio.

In January of 1976, the original Sprague-Smith Studio — built in 1915–1916 and funded by music students of Mrs. Charles Sprague-Smith of the Veltin School — was destroyed by fire. Redesigned by William Gnade, Sr., a Peterborough builder, the fieldstone structure was rebuilt the same year from the foundation up, reusing the original fieldstone. A few…

Learn more