About

Adam Harrington (b. 2000) is an American composer writing narrative and descriptive music that is exciting, colorful, and expressive. He has been praised for his imaginative orchestration, strong melodic content, and vivid narrative structures. Visual and literary art play a key role in his work as many pieces are based on paintings, poetry, and narrative media like film and novels.

Adam is an EarShot participant, an ASCAP Morton Gould finalist, and has been an honorary mention for the Edward Cone Institute and a finalist for the TUTTI Festival. His piece “Fireworks” won the NYC Orchestra Project’s first call for scores. He attended the Brevard Music Center Summer Institute in 2026. Upcoming projects include pieces for Bad Time to Scream, percussionist Diego Alfonso, baritone Elijah Gebbers, and saxophonist Alexander Howard. In the spring of 2026, Adam saw premieres by Dither, Hub New Music, NYU Contemporary Music Ensemble, NYU Saxophone Ensemble, Sugar Land Winds, and clarinetist Anthony Lopez. In 2025, he was the winner of the Mostly Modern Festival’s orchestral competition with his work “Fireworks” given its premiere at the festival in June 2025. His work “Marvels in the Mountains”, also premiered at the Mostly Modern Festival by FAB5. Fall 2025 featured premieres of “Excelsior”, for solo tuba, commissioned by Elihu Conant-Haque, and “In a Hollow Field” for percussion sextet by the NYU Percussion Ensemble. Spring 2025 saw the premieres of “…All in a Hot and Copper Sky” with pianist Katherine Wenyi Xiong, “Sure on this Shining Night” with the Cypress Winds, “Ghosts Before Breakfast” for The Rhythm Method, and “Subway Story” for members of Contemporaneous. In 2024 he was the runner-up for NYU’s orchestral competition with the orchestral version of his work “Starry Night” and his wind band piece “Road to the Sun” was selected as the runner-up in the Austin Symphonic Band competition. 

Before his studies as a composer, Adam studied music education, horn, and conducting at the University of Houston. He graduated with a B.M. in Horn Performance in 2022 after studying with Gavin Reed and Robert Johnson. He began composition study in his final year, studying with Rob Smith and Marcus Maroney. Adam remains an active horn player in NYC and he credits his time as a horn player as his main influence in composition as well as his love of Maurice Ravel, John Williams, Gustav Mahler, John Adams, and Hans Abrahamsen.

Adam holds an M.M. in concert composition at NYU’s Steinhardt School and his principal teachers include Justin Dello Joio, Robert Honstein, Michael Gordon, and Julia Wolfe. In his free time, Harrington is an avid sports fan, supporting teams from Houston and Seattle as well as Arsenal Football Club. He grew up a fan of film and video games and credits both as having a great influence on him as a composer. He is also hoping to eventually finish visiting all US states (only some midwestern states remain) and national parks. He is based in Brooklyn, New York.