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Adam Gorb’s latest composition is to be premiered at the Hampstead and Highgate Festival |
On the eve of Adam’s homecoming
INTERVIEW: ADAM GORB
Hampstead and Highgate Festival
HIS music has enjoyed premieres in concert halls around the globe – in America, Japan, Holland, Singapore and Switzerland, his virtuoso scores earning him accolades of acclaim.
But it is only next week that Adam Gorb, now 50, is coming home to Hampstead to unveil his latest dynamic work. Hampstead is where he spent his early years and where he made his mark with the music masters at William Ellis Comprehensive before going on to Cambridge and later the Royal Academy of Music, winning himself the highest honours, as well as the Principal’s Prize.
For the past eight and a half years his life has had a northern accent, living in the Cheshire countryside, a 45-minute drive from Manchester, where he is the distinguished head of composition and contemporary music at the Royal Northern College of Music.
It will be a poignant return to Hampstead for two reasons – Serenade for Spring is being given its world premiere on May 7 at the opening gala charity concert for this year’s Hampstead and Highgate Festival, his first on home territory.
And it is the first of his compositions to be dedicated to his parents, Ruth and Peter Gorb, who will be in the audience at Hampstead Parish Church to hear their special serenade, which was commissioned by the festival 18 months ago with funding from the John S Cohen Foundation.
“I am sure the festival orchestra under George Vass are going to give a great performance,” says Adam. “I haven’t heard the piece yet but I’ll be coming down for a couple of rehearsals before the festival opens.
“I suppose it is my first world premiere in NW3. I might have written a couple of small pieces which were first played at Burgh House when I was much younger, and I have heard performances of my work in Hampstead before. But this is the big thing.
“I’ve had premieres all round the world. Last year I flew over to New York for just one day because something of mine, a piece for eight tubas and two bass drums, was done in Carnegie Hall. What’s important this time is that Serenade for Spring is my first dedication to my parents, who have done so much to support me.
“I feel a bit guilty about that, that it has taken so long. But I thought, as the work was for the Hampstead and Highgate Festival, it would tie in nicely.”
Peter Gorb, now a retired design guru and his well-known journalist wife Ruth were in Cardiff when Adam was born. They moved to Hampstead in 1963 when Adam was five and his brother, Simon, was four. Both boys became pupils at New End primary.
Adam believes his musical genes come from his maternal Russian grandfather, who had a wonderful singing voice and came to London’s East End from Odessa before the First World War. It is one reason, too, why he has composed music with a Jewish flavour, some in memory of his grandfather, who died a decade ago, aged 95.
He took to playing the piano naturally and recalls composing his first piece of music when he was 10 and then, at 14, writing a musical alphabet, part of which was subsequently played on Radio 3.
He worked as a musician in the theatre after graduating from Cambridge, then began studying privately with the Highgate composer Paul Patterson before realising that it was his mission too and, in 1991, arrived at the Royal Academy of Music.
From there it was on to the Royal Northern College, where he teaches 25 of the dedicated 600 students, having to find his own time at home with his wife, Elizabeth, and musical offspring Ben, 15, and Juliette, 11, to create his own unique compositions.
His music since then has and sparkled audiences with its virtuosity.
His technique will be on display during the 14-minute Serenade for Spring, and again the following night when his composition Reconciliation is performed at a festival concert at Christ Church, Hampstead.
Serenade is a three-movement work corresponding to the months of March, April and May and recalls “times when we had beautiful winter landscapes on Hampstead Heath and skating on Whitestone Pond,” says Adam.
“Hampstead is a sort of spiritual home for me,” he adds, “and a place I still hanker for.”
GERALD ISAAMAN
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