New concert music gets such scant attention nowadays that travellers on the Clapham Omnibus would struggle, I suspect, to name a living British composer. But if they got beyond Birtwistle, they’d probably make it to Thomas Adès, who has been the hot property of his generation since he was a student in the 1990s.
Two successful operas – Powder Her Face and The Tempest – have travelled the world. A third – The Exterminating Angel – opens at Covent Garden next month after an acclaimed premiere at Salzburg. And the Wigmore Hall has just hosted a whole Adès Day, in the course of which he talked (reluctantly), played the piano (in his own and other music), and accepted homage from disciples – who don’t see him so often now that he lives in Los Angeles.
