Adam Guettel

About Adam Guettel

Called “a composer for the new century” by the Los Angeles Times, Adam Guettel is one of American musical theater's most vibrant new voices, a composer/lyricist who has written some of the more adventurous and admired theater music of the last decade. His latest work, "Saturn Returns: A Concert," premiered in March 1998 at the Joseph Papp Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival to resounding critical praise. A song-cycle adapted from classic Greek myths and texts of an early American hymn-book, "Saturn Returns" has been recorded for release on CD by Nonesuch Records, under its original title: "Myths and Hymns."
Guettel was awarded the Stephen Sondheim Award for songwriting distinction from Philadelphia's American Musical Theater Festival in 1990. He composed several one act operas, scores for films, animated films and television, before receiving a commission from AMTF to create his first full-length musical theater work.

"Floyd Collins," written in collaboration with director Tina Landau, received its World Premiere in 1994 at the American Music Theater Festival. Based on a true story about a Kentucky cave explorer and the media circus surrounding his entrapment underground in 1925, the show was redeveloped at Playwrights Horizons in New York City, where it opened triumphantly in 1996, receiving an Obie Award, the Lucille Lortel Award and a Drama Desk nomination for Best Musical. The original cast recording was released on Nonesuch Records the following year. A new production of "Floyd Collins," on tour in the United States through June, was mounted jointly by a consortium of major regional theaters, including the Old Globe Theater in San Diego, American Music Theater Festival in Philadelphia and the Goodman Theater in Chicago.

Guettel started out in music as a boy soprano soloist at The Metropolitan Opera and the New York City Opera. He attended Yale University, where his concerto for jazz quartet and orchestra won the Yale Concerto Competition, graduating in 1987. A full-length operatic version of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" followed in 1989, written for Providence’s Trinity Repertory Theater.

He has composed scores for numerous PBS documentaries, including Anthony Edwards' award-winning "Speak Through Walls" and CBS TV's two hour J.F.K. documentary, "Jack." Other recent credits include a collaboration with playwright John Guare for the Acting Company production of "Love's Fire," based on the sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the soundtrack for the feature film "Arguing the World." Four of his songs were featured on singer Audra McDonald's recent debut CD on Nonesuch, "Way Back To

Paradise."