• Workshops & Seminars

See also under Pre-Concert Talks

From May 2016 Adrian Thomas is taking indefinite leave from public speaking engagements in order to concentrate on non-musical projects.

Adrian Thomas has led seminars in universities and music academies in the UK, Poland and USA, at New York Public Library and at Institut d’Humanitats in Barcelona. He has also run composition workshops (for example, with the Ulster Orchestra, the BBC Singers and Lontano).

Recent

Recent public engagements in London have included study days, workshops and seminars for the London SO, Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Opera House, the South Bank Centre and the BBC SO.

LSO Discovery Days, Barbican and LSO St Luke’s
He has also led London Symphony Orchestra’s Discovery Days on Penderecki (1999 and 2002) and Bartók (2000), giving seminars, conducting chamber music rehearsals and giving pre-concert talks.

• His most recent Discovery Day was on Karol Szymanowski on 23 September 2012, when he gave a talk on the composer and led a workshop on the Second String Quartet with members of the LSO.

Philharmonia Orchestra, Southbank Centre
On 16 March 2013, as part of Witold Lutosławski’s centenary celebrations, Adrian Thomas spoke at a study day for the Philharmonia Orchestra’s Woven Words series.  He talked about ‘The Spaces of Dream: Lutosławski and Surrealism’.  Steven Stucky, Nicholas Reyland and the Jubilee String Quartet are also participated.  The event took place in the St Paul’s Roof Pavilion at the Royal Festival Hall, London.

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
On 1 May 2013, Adrian Thomas took part in an Insight evening in the Clore Studio Upstairs at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, on Szymanowski’s King Roger.  He gave a half-hour talk about the opera, its genesis and production history before a discussion about the ROH production team’s current thinking by the director Kasper Holten, the designer Steffen Aarfing and the dramaturg John Lloyd Davies.

‘Warsaw Autumn’
During the 2013 ‘Warsaw Autumn’ festival, on 21 September, Adrian Thomas participated in the public seminar ‘Polska Music Now’.

‘The Rest Is Noise’, Southbank Centre
As part of the SBC’s ‘The Rest Is Noise’, Adrian Thomas gave a talk – ‘Behind the Iron Curtain: Music and Spirituality in Eastern Europe’ – on 2 November 2013, at 12.30 and again at 16.00.  The event took place in the Weston Pavilion at the Royal Festival Hall as part of the ‘Politics and Spirituality’ Weekend.

BBC Symphony Orchestra, Barbican
‘Polish Pioneer’: a talk to open the BBC SO’s ‘Total Immersion’ day on Henryk Mikołaj Górecki (3 October 2015).  The rest of the programme included two string quartets, choral music, a subtitled film, and an evening concert including the UK premiere of Kyrie, the Harpsichord Concerto, Old Polish Music and Second Symphony ‘Copernican’.  See Total Immersion: Henryk Górecki.

Szymanowski Academy of Music, Katowice
As part of the Academy’s annual ‘Open Days’, on 7 April 2016 Adrian Thomas gave a talk on his work in personal and public archives on the sources of postwar Polish music: ‘Turning Over An Old Leaf: Przygody wśród materiałów źródłowych powojennej muzyki polskiej‘.