Praised as an “excellent pianist” with “titanic force” (New York Times), Adam Marks is an active soloist, collaborator, curator, and educator based in NYC. He has appeared as soloist with the Mission Chamber Orchestra, Manchester Symphony Orchestra, the National Repertory Orchestra, and at notable venues including Salle Cortot, Carnegie Hall, Miller Theatre, Logan Center for the Arts, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Millennium Park, Ravinia, and Davies Symphony Hall. He was a laureate of the Orleans Competition for contemporary music in Orleans, France, and his premiere of Holly Harrison’s “Lobster Tales and Turtle Soup” with Eighth Blackbird won the Australian Art Music Awards Performance of the Year in 2018. Other recent international performances include recitals in Brazil, Singapore, France, and Croatia.
As part of Albatross (his duo with vocalist Jennifer Beattie), Adam serves as the founding co-director of Artists at Albatross Reach, an arts residency/incubator in Gualala, California. There, he has helped to craft a unique collaborative process to champion the development of new multidisciplinary works and experimentation, as well as a rich environment for curious community members and local artists to explore and participate in the art-making. Recent pieces to emerge from AaAR include Thelonius Monk Award winner Jon Irabagon’s “After Talk” for mezzo-soprano, mezzo-soprano saxophone, and piano, premiered at National Sawdust in June 2018, and the Black Queen Project, a co-creation of Albatross and composer Juraj Kojs based on the life of 15th Century Queen Barbora of Celje, premiered in Miami in September 2018. Marks’ other programming ventures include serving as the first non-local curator for the San Francisco Center for New Music, presenting innovative soloists and ensembles from across the country.
Highly in demand as a collaborative musician, he has toured extensively with Eighth Blackbird, been a guest artist with Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble and Fireworks Ensemble, and joined notable musicians Matt Albert, Adam Tendler, and Margaret Lancaster on stage. In 2017, he presented a devised work with renowned filmmaker Jenny Perlin for three performances at the Whitney Museum, and in 2015 he made his off-Broadway debut as an actor/musician in Fiasco Theatre’s critically acclaimed revival of Into The Woods at Roundabout Theatre.
As an educator, Adam specializes in teaching public speaking and creative presentation for musicians along with traditional performance workshops. As part of Albatross, he has been an Artist-In-Residence with the Yale College Department of Music Composers’ Seminar since 2006. He has held faculty positions at Carthage College and NYU, and was a founding faculty member of both New Music On The Point and the Fresh Inc festival. He has given guest lectures and masterclasses at Yale, The Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, Northwestern, Mannes, SMU, CU Boulder, The Colburn School, the LaSalle School for the Arts in Singapore, and the Zagreb Conservatory. He holds an undergraduate degree from Brandeis University, a Masters from Manhattan School of Music, and a Ph.D. in Piano Performance from New York University with research in works for vocalizing pianist. His teachers include Sara Davis Buechner, Anthony de Mare, Donn-Alexandre Feder, Evan Hirsch, and Lois Banke. Adam proudly plays Yamaha pianos and Schoenhut toy pianos.