Adam Gorb

A smiling middle-aged man with curly gray hair, glasses, and a checkered shirt sitting in an office.

Composer in Residence/ Artistic Advisor

Adam Gorb studied Music at Cambridge University and Composition at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he graduated with the highest honours including the Principal’s Prize, in 1993. His compositions include orchestral, ensemble, chamber, solo and choral works, and have been performed, broadcast, and recorded world-wide. In the UK, his compositions have had performances at contemporary music festivals in Huddersfield, Cheltenham, Hampstead, and Highgate, Spitalfields and Canterbury, and he has had concerts entirely devoted to his music in the UK, the USA, Canada and Australia. He has been featured composer at Luton and Bromsgrove music clubs and Chetham’s International Summer School. His concert band composition Metropolis has won several prizes, including the Walter Beeler Memorial Prize in the USA in 1994. Three other Wind Ensemble works: Towards Nirvana, Adrenaline City and Farewell have won British Composer awards. His works have been performed by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the Maggini Quartet, the BBC Singers, the Tokyo Kosei Wind Ensemble, the Royal Marines and the Liverpool 10/10 ensemble.

In 2010 a CD devoted to his works was released on the NMC label, and in the same year a large-scale work Eternal Voices was premiered in Exeter cathedral. His first opera Anya17 (2012) was premiered in Liverpool and Manchester to great acclaim – there have subsequently been productions in Germany in and the USA. 2016 saw the premiere of In Solitude, for Company by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and the release of another CD Dancing in the Ghetto. His second opera The Path to Heaven was given its first performances in Leeds and Manchester in 2018 with further productions in the USA in 2019 and 2020. In 2022 a CD of piano music: 24 Preludes and Velocity was released on the Toccata label with the pianist Clare Hammond.

Professor Adam Gorb was Head of School of Composition at the Royal Northern College of Music from 2000 – 2023. He has taught at universities in Australia, the Usa, Canada, South Korea, Japan and many European countries.

As Composer-in-Residence and Artistic Advisor at Opera Vera, Adam plays a key role in shaping the company’s contemporary voice—contributing original works and guiding the curation of new music. His deep knowledge of 20th- and 21st-century Opera and strong artistic insight make him an invaluable part of the team, helping to identify composers and projects that align with Opera Vera’s mission to present bold, relevant, and emotionally resonant operatic experiences.