Biographical note
MICHAEL ADAMIS was born in Piraeus. He completed in Athens his studies in both Western and Byzantine Music as well as in Theology and pursued advanced studies in Composition, Electronic Music and Byzantine Music Paleography at Brandeis University in Boston U.S.A.
In his musical studies and his general musical endeavour he has always combined the quest of Contemporary creative music with the insight in Byzantine - that have been interlinked in his compositional work giving it a characteristic identity in the international avant-guard. The personal idiom Adamis has developed, founded in the musical culture of the Greek Tradition, has long been recognised as a new trend in contemporary Art Music.
Adamis has written for Orchestra, chamber orchestra, instrumental ensembles, solo instruments, voice and Choir. He has made electronic music on tape or in combination with live instruments and/or voice; also music for the Church, the Theatre and Television. He has been repeatedly commissioned by International Festivals and Cultural Organisations, he has represented Greece in large-scale cultural events in several parts of Europe, works of his have been performed in most of the big European Festivals and in numerous local ones, particularly in France and Germany, but also in the U.S., Latin America and the Far East.
Besides composition Adamis has also been very active as a Choral Conductor and as a researcher in Byzantine musicology; through his participation in the Boards, Juries and Committees of several curtural schemes, he has engaged himself in the promotion of music creation and the advancement of music education.
Most important among his musicological studies is the discovery, in manuscripts of the 14th-15th c, of the oldest so far example of polyphony in Byzantion (11th Congress of the International Musicological Society, Copenhagen 1972 ).
In 1965 Adamis founded the first electronic music studio in Athens. For a decade, 1975 - 1985, he was President of the Hellenic Association for Contemporary Music (EΣΣYM) and of the Greek Section of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM). From 1981 to 1984 he was President of the Committee on Choral Development sponsored by the Greek Ministry of Culture. From 1990 member of the Board of Directors of Ionion University, in which capacity he planned the Curriculum and the organisation of the School of Musical Studies where he also teaches. Since 1968 he teaches music and directs the Choir at Pierce College.
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