Associate Conductor
Adam Stern, “Pops” conductor since 2016, brings his creative ideas for the concerts, and provides community outreach via interactive workshops, especially the concert previews held in Umpqua Hall on the SWOCC campus. Stern is Music Director of the Seattle Philharmonic, the Sammamish Symphony, and the Federal Way Symphony. His 23-year tenure with the Philharmonic has put that orchestra at the forefront of U. S. ensembles featuring long-forgotten and neglected compositions, particularly those by women. Stern began his musical studies at age five as a piano student, and the flute two years later. He enrolled at California Institute of the Arts and graduated in 1977 with an MFA in conducting at 21, the youngest master’s degree recipient in CalArts’ history.
As a composer, Stern has written for the concert hall and the stage. He has composed incidental music for productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, King Lear, The Winter’s Tale, Waiting for the Parade and Sweet Eros. His score for Richard III earned him a Los Angeles Dramalogue Award for Best Original Score. In Seattle, Stern wrote the music for Seattle Repertory Theatre’s production of Art, as well as four works for Seattle’s A Contemporary Theatre: incidental scores for The Red and the Black, Alki, The Pillowman and A Christmas Carol, the latter score used every year since its 1996 premiere. Stern’s most recent composition for the concert hall is Spirits of the Dead, a setting for narrator and orchestra of the poem by Edgar Allan Poe. Stern earned a Grammy as Classical Producer of the Year, principally for his recordings with Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony.