Sebastian Adams

Complete works

All materials are freely available, except where I don't own the necessary permissions. Provided as is, please report bugs or mistakes. Feel free to get in touch with questions or to let me know you're interested in my work!

Singing Hollow

(2025)   [240]

A performance installation for church bells (method ringers), organ, and walking instruments. Designed around St Audoen's Church, Dublin but adaptable to new spaces. Two computers required.

Cover image for Singing Hollow

The linked website includes documentation, a web-based score and much more detailed information about the piece.

The Singing Hollow sculpture in St Audoen's Park invites visitors to put their heads into a hole inside a rock. It creates an acoustic transformation reminiscent of the feeling of sanctuary from the outside world that comes when you walk into a church. This inspired this live sound installation: organ plays inside the church, musicians play in the grounds, and church bells bridge both worlds, all playing parts that are both independent and interdependent.

In the original performance, the piece is designed for four outdoor instruments, six church bells (each one rung by an individual) and an organ. It was specifically written for St Audoen’s Church of Ireland, which is an incredibly old church.

Commissioned by The Office of Public Works and The Liberties Festival

Traffic Piece

(2025)   [840]

durational installation (14 hours) for multiple groups of instruments, video, audio and live traffic; devoted to Unit 44!

Cover image for Traffic Piece

Presented here in a web installation version that locks the viewer to the specific moment from the performance corresponding to the current time of day.

Traffic Piece was created as a goodbye to Unit 44, a venue Kirkos ran which was heavily impacted by traffic sound. It ran from rush hour in the morning to rush hour at night. I got the idea for this piece during a beautiful saxophone performance by Josten Myburgh where his barely audible multiphonics fought for attention with the traffic outside in a way that really captivated me. After four years watching the traffic pass Unit 44, I thought sitting down and really listening to it would be the perfect way to say goodbye to the venue.

A bunch of the performers who contributed a lot to Unit 44 played a 14-hour long score (working in shifts) made from a full week of security cam footage of the street outside Unit 44, while they and the audience also watched the traffic in real life.

These different time cycles (moment to moment, rush hour to rush hour, Monday to Sunday) will mingle with pitch material derived from the resonances of Unit 44 itself to influence a ritualistic performance which is fully about the specific place that Unit 44 is and has been, and about the way the outside world has spilled into it.

The piece finished with a guided improvisation using the traffic as a score, open to all.

06:30 - 08:10 Shift 1: Sebastian Adams and Tom Roseingrave
08:10 - 8:30: traffic only
08:30 - 10:10: Shift 2: David Bremner and Sharon Phelan
10:10 - 10:30: traffic only
10:30 - 12:30: Shift 3: Aonghus McEvoy, Susan Geaney, David Lacey, Nick Roth
12:10 - 12:30: traffic only
12:30 - 14:10: Beethoven Freeze: Sebastian Adams and Robert Coleman
14.10 - 14.30: traffic only
14:30 - 16:10: Shift 5: Kevin Free and Jane Hackett
16:10 - 16:30: traffic only
16:30 - 18:00: in nomine: Sebastian Adams, Hannah Miller, CaitrĂ­ona O'Mahony
18:00 - 18:30: traffic only
18:30 until the traffic ceases: Shift 7: open improv jam (all welcome)

Joan Somers Donnelly made a parallel performance taking notes on the passing traffic almost all day

Stolen Music

(2022)   [10]

fixed-media multi-channel video, diffused stereo sound, printed text materials, audience members with kazoos, interactive website and live narration

Stolen Music was originally conceived for my final project as part of the IRCAM Cursus, but it is also an ongoing musical world-building project composed of websites, audio collages, acts of piracy etc.

The basic aim of the project is to explore two main ideas that matter to me:

Examining the boundaries of a "piece" of music: questioning the idea of the sole author and finding ways to subvert the linear, sectional timeline of a typical musical performance
Presenting an argument that all musical material should be fair game for all people to work with, regardless of who owns it under current copyright law.

This project owes a huge debt to Claudia Jane Scroccaro, the other teachers at IRCAM, and my colleagues from my course who let me mess with their music. Much more info is available on the dedicated website.

Freed Sounds Instrument

(2022)  

audience with internet-connected mobile phones

Cover image for Freed Sounds Instrument

An instrument for playing with samples from freesound.org, with a set of accompanying text scores that can be used to process your performance of this. Suitable for performance in a group using mobile phones as loudspeakers.

Thought Music

(2022)  

interactive web page (for use by anybody): text input converted into music and can be played back and saved to a database

Near and Exact Repetition (collab. with Jonathan Nangle)

(2019)  

installation for tape loops, tape players and modular synthesiser

Beethoven Freeze (Broken)

(2019)   [10]

installation for smashed violin with embedded fixed media electronics

Small adjustments that over the years forged a new landscape [collab. Joan Somers Donnelly]

(2019)   [120]

performance installation; viola/performer/electronics/vegetation/casette players/

Umbrella [collab. with Jools Gilson; early prototype]

(2019)  

installation for electronic umbrella and audio [presented at CARPA6, Helsinki, Aug 2019]

Beethoven Freeze

(2018)   [120]

installation for string instruments with transducers