About Adam

Adam’s career has been astonishingly varied, the only consistent feature being the high critical acclaim attracted by his performances and recordings. Fêted as folk music’s Instrumentalist of the Year in 2021, Adam’s classical pedigree is also impeccable, with direct links via his grandfather to the violinists who premiered Brahms’s and Tchaikovsky’s violin concertos. He has an impressive classical discography including discs that have received exceptionally high praise in the press and been played on Radio 3, Classic FM and throughout the world. His work as a composer has crossed genres from classical to jazz, gypsy and folk and has also been performed and broadcast worldwide.

His first disc of chamber music, including premiere recordings of works by Copland, was described as being “to die for” by the UK’s The Strad magazine and, recently, the New York Times reported “astonishing, all-out virtuosity on violin by Adam Summerhayes”  — the references to virtuosity are frequent in the international press: “breath-taking violin wizardry” from New Zealand; “like the direct descendant of the devil’s violinist Paganini” from Germany; “intoxicating … virtuoso fiddle playing” (The Times). As a classical chamber musician, he has performed in many prestigious venues: the South Bank Centre’s Purcell Room and Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, as well as the prestigious Wigmore Hall; the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music Concert Hall; the Théatre du Chatelet, Paris; and the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

Extensive international touring has taken him across the majority of Europe and to Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, Canada, Alaska, and New Zealand — and a total of 45 US states. He joined the extraordinarily dynamic baroque group Red Priest in 2015 and arranged and composed most of their latest album “The Baroque Bohemians”, which topped the classical charts. Outside the classical sphere, Adam played over much of the globe with the gypsy-tango band ZUM and enjoyed a period as featured solo violinist in the band of Dutch multi-platinum-selling pop star Caro Emerald (including in London’s O2 arena to 20,000 people). He also wrote a track for a blockbuster movie, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, and had a brief cameo role — as a Gypsy violinist. Fun-fact: Robert Downey Jnr. ‘played’ Adam’s violin on set.

Outside what we describe as ‘classical music’, Adam revels in the ‘in the moment’ creation of music, primarily drawing on his folk music heritage and world-music collaborations. The Ciderhouse Rebellion, his duo with accordionist Murray Grainger is a sensation in the folk world and beyond (“Gorgeous stuff” BBC Radio 3) and by drawing together the stellar musicians that form The Haar, he has created an Anglo/Irish band that “……..” according to Irish Music Magazine. The Ciderhouse Rebellion’s current project with Sámi singer and reideer herder Sara Ajnnak is a particularly exciting recent development. Back on the classical stage his new string trio, RIOT, brings an unfettered approach to the repertoire as well as a trio of trios exploring the medium’s place in the 21st century.