About Us

ADORNO Ensemble captivates audiences through live chamber music performances, vital public dialogue, and multifaceted, innovative programming. Named after Theodor Adorno, the German sociologist and philosopher of aesthetics, cultural awareness, and musicology, ADORNO embraces risk-taking with a clear, conscious eye on contemporary audiences. A young organization, ADORNO has already made major contributions to the world of live music with compelling performances and groundbreaking projects. In its 2005-2006 Season, ADORNO launched a sophisticated, cutting-edge podcast series the Gallery Sessions Radio Show, an ongoing live-recorded series of contemporary music concerts and artist talks held in San Francisco art galleries (ADORNO’s podcasts can be heard on adornoensemble.org). In 2007, ADORNO was awarded first place in the ASCAP Adventurous Programming Award. Richard Scheinin of the San Jose Mercury News hailed a recent concert as, "...a beautiful, blazing performance by the ADORNO Ensemble, a crackerjack new music band that plays with conviction and vitality and blows the dust off classical music."  The group is featured on the independent music website fingeronthepulse.com as “Best Classical Group 2006”, and has garnered favorable mention from the New Yorker’s Alex Ross.

ADORNO has also created and popularized a special interdisciplinary residency, Kandinsky Listening: Music Appreciation through Visual Art, which was first held at San Francisco State University in 2004. In 2006, ADORNO expanded its efforts to bridge music with visual arts and presented well-received performances at the San Francisco de Young Museum, developed and programmed to engage with the museum's International Arts and Crafts Exhibit. In 2006, the group began its residency at Santa Clara University, where they take an active role in promoting new music – both through showcasing composers and their existing works and by commissioning and premiering new compositions. Recent ADORNO collaborations have included work with composers Derek Bermel, Gabriela Frank, Dan Becker, and Chen Yi. ADORNO has been awarded grants from the prestigious Copland Fund for Performing Ensembles and from the Barlow Foundation for Music Composition. The group has also been generously supported by the LEF Foundation, the Bernard Osher Foundation, the Zellerbach Family Foundation, the ASCAP Foundation, Meet the Composer Creative Connections, and the Clarence E. Heller Foundation.