Adam Knauss | Composer

Biography

Adam Knauss (b. 1984) is a composer based in the Baltimore, Maryland area. While much of his music is in the contemporary classical vein, he has also composed for a wide variety of media in a number of different styles. In the field of concert music, he has written for orchestra, concert band, choir, solo instruments, and a wide variety of chamber ensembles. He has composed pieces for a number of colleagues, as well as several ensembles, including ALEA III, the Boston University Concert Choir, the Boston University Concert Band, the AM/PM Saxophone Quartet, and No Signal. In 2007, he received a Career Development Grant from the Peabody Institute, which was used to fund a studio recording of his String Quartet in three movements.

Knauss has also taken part in multimedia collaborations, composing works for theater, film, and dance. In 2011, he composed original scores for Federico Garcia Lorca's Blood Wedding and S. Ansky's The Dybbuk, both of which were staged by the Marvell Repertory Theatre in New York City, directed by Lenny Leibowitz. Some other notable past projects include composing incidental music for several Boston University Theater Department productions, such as Shakespeare's The Tempest and Carlo Gozzi's The King Stag, both directed by Leibowitz; Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, and Eugène Ionesco's Rhinoceros, both directed by Dan Winerman. Knauss has also composed for film, collaborating with director Jen Purington on her 2008 documentary Counter Body Motion. In 2005, he collaborated with choreographer Gabrielle Orcha, composing a piece for jazz ensemble entitled Rollin' Boil to accompany Orcha's dance piece Woman with a Vision, which went on to win Boston University's Kahn Award in 2006.

Knauss also has experience performing, conducting, and teaching. A pianist since a young age, he has performed and recorded a number of his own works for piano, and he has conducted his own works in both concert and theater settings. Awarded a teaching assistantship in music theory from the Peabody Institute, he has experience teaching undergraduate music theory as a primary classroom teacher, a teaching assistant, and as a private tutor.

Born and raised in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area, Knauss received his Bachelor's Degree in Music Composition from Boston University and Master's Degrees in Music Composition and Music Theory Pedagogy from the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University. He has studied composition with Kevin Puts, Martin Amlin, Steven Weigt, William Mival, and Samuel Headrick, and he has studied piano with Linda Jiorle-Nagy and Noriko Kawai. He has also had individual composition lessons with Lukas Foss, Christopher Theofanidis, Chen Yi, and Libby Larsen. Knauss is a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP), and he now works as a freelance composer, and also as a Dueling Pianist, playing and singing songs by request (see Links page).

KNAUSS: The "K" is pronounced (as in the German "knee"), and it rhymes with "house."