Reviews of Local Concerts and Productions

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Gillian Fields: Songs of My America — September 13, 2024

Laura Sam Comparable to a traditional hand-pieced quilt, “Songs of My America” warmly wrapped the audience with intricate blocks of song cycles, gospel songs, and spirituals, artfully stitched together by Ms. Gillian Fields, soprano, and Mr. Robert Brewer,...

Cary-Apex Youth Choir – The Stories We Tell – May 18, 2024

William Adams, DMA Music falls into two overarching categories: Programmatic and Absolute. Absolute music exists only for the sake of the music; programmatic music tells a story. Composers give us a hint as to their intent in how they title the piece. J.S. Bach’s...

Voices – Of Music and Paradise – May 18, 2024

William Adams, DMA Making music is all about community. The composer hopes their music will be played by other musicians and heard by audiences. The performer connects with the composer, with other musicians on stage with them, and with the audience. This experience...

NCSU Theater’s Vivid Jekyll and Hyde — February 16, 2024

William Adams, DMA Robert Louis Stevenson first brought us the “Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” in 1886. One of the foremost examples of gothic horror, it was initially published as a “penny dreadful.” Richard Mansfield and Thomas Russell Sullivan transformed...

NC Opera’s Brilliant Barber — February 2, 2024

William Adams, DMA What’s that age-old knock against opera? Opera singers can’t act, right? Maybe there was a time when that was marginally true. There have been periods in opera where singers came forward, stood in one place, and simply delivered their aria. Duets,...

Women’s Voices Celebrates 30 Years — January 27, 2024

William Adams, DMA How do you properly honor the accomplishments and achievements garnered over a thirty year span without seeming self-aggrandizing? Here’s a good option: pull musical selections from concerts over that entire history of the ensemble that not only...

SONAM — Music of Peace and Consolation — November 11, 2023

William Adams, DMA It is a very powerful thing, making music. Both the musician and the listener are transported, taken on a journey that can be whimsical or intensely emotional. Music invites us to explore deeper states of mind, deeper levels of consciousness, deeper...

Oak City Voices present “Over the Moon” – November 4, 2023

William Adams, DMA We go to concerts to experience music in the moment. The unpredictability of a live performance is always exciting for both the performers and the audience. If we need to hear “perfection” in music, we listen to recordings that have been edited and...

NCSU Choirs Highlight Reena Esmail – November 2, 2023

William Adams, DMA The North Carolina State University Choirs under the direction of Dr. Nathan Leaf presented a diverse, somewhat eclectic program with texts ranging from Shakespeare to Native American poetry and music ranging from traditional Appalachian folk music...

North Carolina Opera’s “La Traviata” Shines

William Adams, DMA The operas of Giuseppe Verdi are among the most demanding, vocally, of any in the repertoire. They require strong yet agile voices capable of sustaining demanding tessiture through some of the most dramatic and intense characters seen on the opera...

About the reviewer

William Adams, DMA

William Adams’ musical career has been exceptionally diverse, driven equally by passions to expand the limits of his own artistic abilities and to reach out and empower musicians of all ages and backgrounds.

Trained as an operatic baritone, he has a growing repertoire of more than 70 roles in opera, oratorio, and musical theater. An avid choral musician, his experience includes vocal jazz, madrigals, contemporary a cappella, and barbershop harmony. His instrumental background has led to performances on more than 40 instruments in every conceivable setting from symphony orchestras to rock bands.

His work as a conductor has led him to more than 100 festivals around the country, community and church choirs, barbershop choruses, theater productions, marching bands, symphonic bands, and jazz bands. He currently serves as Artistic Director for two ensembles based in Durham, North Carolina. Heart of Carolina A Cappella, a multi-award winning barbershop harmony chorus; and the Triangle Vocal Project, an 18-voice professional chamber choir whose mission is to make great music and raise money for music-based charities.

A fierce advocate for music education, he has lectured throughout the country about curriculum design, music education advocacy, vocal health, and performance practice techniques to performers and educators alike. He is a published scholar in the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams.

His compositions and arrangements for choirs, soloists, and for the stage, have earned awards from the Kennedy Center and performances at Carnegie Hall and throughout the United States and Europe.

Dr. Adams earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Texas at Austin, the Master of Music degree from California State University at Northridge, the Bachelor of Arts degree in Music Education from California State University at San Bernardino, and the Associate of Arts degree from Chaffey College in Rancho Cucamonga, California.

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