John Adams (composer)

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For the Alaska-based postminimalist composer, see John Luther Adams.

John Coolidge Adams (born February 15 1947) is an American composer, with strong roots in minimalism.

[edit] Life and career

John Adams was born in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1947. His father taught him how to play the clarinet and he played in several community ensembles while he was growing up. He began composing at the age of ten and heard his first orchestral piece performed when he was thirteen. Adams studied music at Harvard and graduated in 1971. He moved to California in 1971 to teach at the San Fransisco Conservatory of Music, a position he held for ten years.

John Adams first recorded work was included on Brian Eno's Obscure Records LP "Ensemble Pieces", 1975. He won a Grammy Award in 1989 in the Best Contemporary Composition category for Nixon in China and in 1998 in the same category for El Dorado.

Adams' work On the Transmigration of Souls, a choral work commemorating the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks, won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Music. However, after winning the award Adams expressed "ambivalence bordering on contempt" since he felt that the prize had "lost much of the prestige it still carries in other fields" because "most of the country's greatest musical minds" have been ignored in favor of academy composers and musicians. [1]

The Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen gave the world premier of "Naive and Sentimental Music" in 1998, with Adams dedicating the piece to Salonen. Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic subsequently gave the world premiere of "The Dharma at Big Sur" (with Tracy Silverman as electric violin soloist) in 2003 as part of the opening gala concerts of Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Adams's newest opera, Doctor Atomic, which premiered October 1, 2005, is also a collaboration with Peter Sellars. The action of the opera is centered on the very first test of the atomic bomb, and is mainly about Robert Oppenheimer. Adams later adapted some of the music from the opera to form a standalone symphony.

John Adams became the BBC Symphony Orchestra's Artist in Association in June 2003. In the words of Adams himself, "the position is sufficiently unstructured and flexible to allow any number of wild things to happen."

On 23 November 2004, the British Academy presented a Fellowship of the Academy to John Adams at the Barbican, London, following a concert with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by the composer and including his work Harmonium.

In 2005, the premiere recording of On the Transmigration of Souls (with Lorin Maazel conducting the New York Philharmonic) won three Grammy awards: Best Classical Album, Best Orchestral Performance, and Best Classical Contemporary Composition.

Other recent prizes include the Harvard Arts medal for 2007.

[edit] Works

[edit] Stage

[edit] Orchestra

[edit] Voice and orchestra

• (1987) The Nixon Tapes
• (1988) The Wound-Dresser

[edit] Chamber Music

• (1970) Piano Quintet
• (1992) Chamber Symphony
• (1978) Shaker Loops
• (1994) John's Book of Alleged Dances
• (1995) Road Movies
• (1996) Gnarly Buttons
• (2007) Son of Chamber Symphony

[edit] Other ensemble works

• (1973) American Standard
• (1973) Christian Zeal and Activity
• (1975) Grounding
• (1982) Grand Pianola Music
• (1996) Scratchband
• (2001) Nancy's Fancy

[edit] Chorus

• (1973) Ktaadn
• (1980) Harmonium
• (1991) Choruses from The Death of Klinghoffer
• (2002) On the Transmigration of Souls

[edit] Tape and electronic compostions

• (1971) Heavy Metal
• (1976) Studebaker Love Music
• (1976) Onyx
• (1983) Light Over Water
• (1992) Hoodoo Zephyr

[edit] Piano

• (1977) Phrygian Gates
• (1977) China Gates
• (1996) Hallelujah Junction
• (2001) American Berserk

[edit] Film score

• (1982) Matter of Heart
• (1999?) An American Tapestry

[edit] Arrangements and Orchestrations

• (1990) The Black Gondola (orchestration of Franz Liszt’s La Lugubre Gondola)
• (1991) Berceuse Élégiaque (arrangement of Ferruccio Busoni’s original)
• (1993) Le Livre de Baudelaire (orchestration of four songs from Cinq poèmes de Charles Baudelaire by Claude Debussy)
• (1995) La Mufa (orchestration of an Astor Piazzolla tango)
• (1996) Todo Buenos Aires (orchestration of an Astor Piazzolla tango)
• (1989-1993) Six Songs by Charles Ives (arranged of songs by Charles Ives)

Categories: 1947 births | Living people | 20th century classical composers | 21st century classical composers | Harvard Centennial Medal recipients | American composers | Members of The American Academy of Arts and Letters | Opera composers | Pulitzer Prize for Music winners | People from San Francisco | People from Worcester, Massachusetts | Grammy Award winners