Adam Larison’s career as a musician and educator has taken him across the U.S. to diverse regions including the deep south and the southwest, California, New York, the Cleveland suburbs, and Chicago. A passionate advocate for innovative, progressive and inclusive music education, he has served on the faculties of several colleges and universities including Kent State University, Saint Xavier University, and Ashland University. Adam’s academic interests are broad and include European and American history, the history and literature of Western Classical Music, the histories of Rock and Roll and Hip Hop, and new music improvisation. Guided by an understanding of the profound, positive influence the study of music has had on his own life, Adam strives to bring this transformative musical experience to others. His work has been funded by grants from Arts Midwest, the Ohio Arts Council, and Arts in Stark.

As a guitarist, Adam has performed in concert halls, on radio and on television across the U.S. and abroad, including in the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Tignes Space (Tignes, France), the Cleveland Guitar Society, the New Mexico International Guitar Festival, Guitar Sarasota, the Greater Cincinnati Guitar Society, KUSF (NPR, San Francisco) and KASA Fox (Albuquerque). Along with fellow guitarist Andrew Stroud, Larison performs as half of Duo 220 with notable feature performances for the Philadelphia Guitar Society, the Louisville International Guitar Festival, the Texas A&M International Guitar Symposium, and the Corsham Arts Festival (U.K.). An advocate for supporting living composers, he has performed North American and world premieres of music by Georg Friedrich Haas, Robert Morris, Sebastian Anthony Birch, and Mark Nowakowski.

Education
D.M.A. Guitar Performance and Literature, The Eastman School of Music
M.M. Guitar Performance, San Francisco Conservatory of Music