Emmy Award–winning and GRAMMY®-nominated composer ADAM SCHOENBERG writes music that tells stories, for the concert hall, the screen, and spaces in between. His works have been heard in more than 400 performances worldwide by the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, The Cleveland Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and Kansas City Symphony, among many others. They have also been heard at the Kennedy Center and the Library of Congress, and four times at the Hollywood Bowl. Finding Rothko has been performed more than 100 times, making it one of the most frequently programmed orchestral works of the 21st century. Picture Studies, a modern-day Pictures at an Exhibition, earned a GRAMMY nomination for Best Contemporary Classical Composition. It was one of two nominations for his debut orchestral album with the Kansas City Symphony.
Narrative is at the heart of Schoenberg’s concert music. Losing Earth is a percussion concerto about climate change. Automation, a cello concerto, explores the tension between humanity and technology in the age of AI. Both appear with the violin concerto Orchard in Fog on his new concerto album, which Pentatone releases in September 2027. The album features the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra under Gemma New, with violinist Anne Akiko Meyers, percussionist Jacob Nissly, and cellist Yves Dhar.
After stepping away from composing for nearly three years for health reasons, Schoenberg returns in 2026–27 with four world premieres:
- The Art of the Goal, which premiered with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl in July 2026. It was the first time in the Bowl’s 104-year history that a film premiered with its original score performed live to picture.
- Scene Study, for two pianos and string quintet, which opens Dranoff 2 Piano Fusion’s 40th anniversary season.
- A new work honoring the 90th anniversary of the Southern California School Band and Orchestra Association.
- A Concerto for Orchestra with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Robert Spano.
For film and television, Schoenberg composed the Emmy Award–winning score for That Far Corner: Frank Lloyd Wright in Los Angeles, an Artbound documentary for PBS/KCET. He also scored Graceland, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, and created theme packages for ABC’s Nightline and The CW’s Crime Nation. His installation work includes music for the Museum of the Future in Dubai.
Schoenberg holds a Doctor of Musical Arts from The Juilliard School. He is Associate Professor at Occidental College, where he directs the composition and film scoring programs. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, playwright and television writer Janine Salinas Schoenberg, their two sons, Luca and Leo, and their goldendoodle, Copland.
2026-2027 biography