Music Producer Adam Abeshouse has Died, Aged 63

The GRAMMY award winner producer worked with some of classical music's greatest artists

The producer for countless renowned artists for more than three decades, Adam Abeshouse has passed away following a long battle with cancer.

Abeshouse produced and engineered recordings for labels including Bridge, DG, SONY, Telarc, BMG, ANGEL-EMI, Naxos, Hyperion, ASV, Arabesque, and Harmonia Mundi Cala.

More collaborations included those with Koch International/E1 Music, New World Records, Delos, Albany Records, CRI, Pickwick, Pro Arte, Well Tempered, Centaur, the National Public Radio the Library of Congress, and many more.

In 1999, he won the GRAMMY Award for Classical Producer of the Year and was nominated again in 2003. He won again in the Best Classical Instrumental Solo Performance category for producing and engineering Garrick Ohlsson’s Beethoven Sonatas, Vol. 3.

His most recent GRAMMY win was for Best Classical Instrumental Solo for his work on Time For Three’s (TF3) album Letters For The Future. His accolades also included two Echo Klassik awards.

Abeshouse first studied violin at the Manhattan School of Music, where he earned his master’s degree. He later performed with the Orchestra of St. Luke's, American Ballet Theater, City Ballet, Concordia, and The Metropolitan String Quartet.

In addition to appearing at chamber music festivals from New York to Hawaii, he also featured as a violinist in the feature films Fame and The Royal Tenenbaums.

Among the many artists Abeshouse worked with included Itzhak Perelman, Joshua Bell, Emanuel Ax, Leon Fleischer, Gary Graffman, Jamie Laredo, Sharon Robinson, as well as the Guarneri, Juilliard, Orion, Kronos, and Fine Arts String Quartets.

He also recorded for the Academy of St. Martins in the Field, English Chamber Orchestra, London Symphony, Boston Symphony Orchestra, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, San Francisco Ballet Orchestra, and the Boston Symphony Chamber Players.

Composers he worked with included Milton Babbitt, George Crumb, André Previn, Andrew Imbie, Paul Moravec, Peter Schickele, Charles Wuorinen, Gunther Schuller, Richard Wernick, Robert Paterson, Howard Shore, Steven Hartke, Aaron Jay Kernis, Melinda Wagner, and many more.

In 2002, Abeshouse founded the Classical Recording Foundation (CRF) in response to the growing need for artists not supported by major labels to record music with artistic freedom.

“I worked very hard for my clients,” Abeshouse said. “I was devoted to them. From the devotion to the clients, I developed this theory that the best thing that I could do for my clients is make them feel safe, and loved, and create an atmosphere in the recording session to do their best.”

As his illness was tragically progressing, pianist Lara Downes organized an at-home concert by the musicians he’d worked with closely for decades. Downes told NPR that the musicians wanted to give their beloved producer a chance to share music together one final time.

“It was an honor and a joy to celebrate the life, the love, the light and the legacy of our extraordinary producer and friend Adam Abeshouse,” TF3 posted on Instagram. “A legend in the music world and a pivotal presence in our lives, Adam is a great artist, and one of the best, kindest, more generous human beings we have ever met and will ever know.

“This was a day that none of us will ever forget — a day when we came together as a family and were able to express the profound love that is at the heart of making music,” they continued. “A day of intense joy and sadness coexisting, and a reminder of the truest, deepest purpose of art and life.”

“Adam has been both a dear, dear friend and he’s been my producer for the last 20 years,” Bell told NPR. “I’ve spent many hours with him in the studios, sitting next to him, doing a process which is usually excruciating for me — the editing process. But with him, it always became a fun time together. Those moments have been so precious to me.”

Our condolences to Mr. Abehouse’s family, friends, and colleagues.