Thomas Ads is a dominant force in contemporary music, whose work attracts significant attention and acclaim, and has been performed by many renowned ensembles. This volume the first to present a range of scholarly essays on every aspect of Ads’s music offers authoritative accounts of Ads’s major compositions from a variety of analytical, critical, cultural and historical perspectives. The opening chapters focus on Ads’s earlier music, offering close readings of key works. Further essays focus on his engagement with forms and instrumental genres. The final chapters turn to Ads’s texted music and highlight how themes introduced in earlier chapters cut across Ads’s entire output. Richly illustrated with musical examples and supported by further online material, this book provides a multi-faceted portrait of Ads’s work that opens up new ways of thinking about, and engaging with, his music.

• The first collection of scholarly essays on this acclaimed contemporary composer
• A wide-ranging overview of Ads’s work, covering almost all of his music
• Approaches Ads’s music from a variety of theoretical and critical perspectives