John Adams (composer)
John Adams | |
---|---|
Born | Worcester, Massachusetts, U.S. | February 15, 1947
Education | Harvard University |
Occupations |
|
Notable work | List of compositions |
Awards |
|
Website | earbox |
John Coolidge Adams (born February 15, 1947) is an American composer and conductor whose music is rooted in
Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, Adams grew up in a musical family, being regularly exposed to classical music, jazz, musical theatre and rock music. He attended Harvard University, studying with Kirchner, Sessions and Del Tredici among others. Though his earliest work was aligned with modernist music, he began to disagree with its tenets upon reading John Cage's Silence: Lectures and Writings. Teaching at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Adams developed his own minimalist aesthetic, which was first fully realized in Phrygian Gates (1977) and later in the string septet Shaker Loops. Increasingly active in the contemporary music scene of San Francisco, his large-scale orchestral works Harmonium and Harmonielehre (1985) first gained him national attention.[3] Other popular works from this time include the fanfare Short Ride in a Fast Machine (1986) and the orchestral work El Dorado (1991).[4]
Adams's first opera was
In many ways, Adams's music is developed from the minimalist tradition of
Life and career
Youth and early career
John Coolidge Adams was born in
In the third grade, Adams took up the clarinet, initially taking lessons from his father, Carl Adams, and later with Boston Symphony Orchestra bass clarinetist Felix Viscuglia. He also played in various local orchestras, concert bands, and marching bands while a student.[10][11] Adams began composing at the age of ten and first heard his music performed as a teenager.[12] He graduated from Concord High School in 1965.[13]
Adams next enrolled in
Adams was the first student at Harvard to be allowed to write a musical composition for his senior thesis.[18][19] For his thesis, he wrote The Electric Wake for "electric" (i.e. amplified) soprano accompanied by an ensemble of "electric" strings, keyboards, harp, and percussion.[20] However, a performance could not be put together at the time, and Adams has never heard the piece performed.[18]
After graduating, Adams received a copy of
1977 to Nixon in China
In 1977, Adams wrote the half-hour-long solo piano piece Phrygian Gates, which he later called "my first mature composition, my official 'opus one'",[23] as well as its much shorter companion piece, China Gates. The next year, he finished Shaker Loops, a string septet based on an earlier, unsuccessful string quartet called Wavemaker.[24] In 1979, he finished his first orchestral work, Common Tones in Simple Time, which was premiered by the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Orchestra under Adams' baton.[25]
In 1979, Adams became the New Music Adviser for the San Francisco Symphony and created the symphony's New and Unusual Music concerts.[26] A commission from the symphony resulted in Adams' large, three-movement choral symphony Harmonium (1980–81) setting texts by John Donne and Emily Dickinson. He followed this up with the three-movement, orchestral piece (without strings), Grand Pianola Music (1982). That summer, he wrote the score for Matter of Heart, a documentary about psychoanalyst Carl Jung, a score he later derided as being "of stunning mediocrity".[27] In the winter of 1982–83, Adams worked on the purely-electronic score for Available Light, a dance choreographed by Lucinda Childs with sets by architect Frank Gehry. Without dance, the electronic piece alone is called Light Over Water.[28]
After an eighteen-month period of writer's block, Adams wrote his three-movement, orchestral piece Harmonielehre (1984–85), which he described as "a statement of belief in the power of tonality at a time when I was uncertain about its future".[29] As with many of Adams' pieces, it was inspired by a dream, in this case, a dream in which he was driving across the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge and saw an oil tanker on the surface of the water abruptly turn upright and take off like a Saturn V rocket.[30][31]
From 1985 to 1987, Adams composed his first
During this time, Adams also wrote The Chairman Dances (1985), which he described as an "'out-take' of Act III of Nixon in China", to fulfill a long-delayed commission for the Milwaukee Symphony.[33] He also wrote the short orchestral fanfare Short Ride in a Fast Machine (1986).[34]
1988 to Doctor Atomic
Adams wrote two orchestral pieces in 1988: Fearful Symmetries, a 25-minute work in the same style as Nixon in China, and The Wound-Dresser, a setting of Walt Whitman's 1865 poem of the same title, written when Whitman was volunteering at a military hospital during the American Civil War. The Wound-Dresser is scored for baritone voice, two flutes (or two piccolos), two oboes, clarinet, bass clarinet, two bassoons, two horns, trumpet (or piccolo trumpet), timpani, synthesizer, and strings.
During this time, Adams established an international career as a conductor. From 1988 to 1990, he served as conductor and music advisor for the
He completed his second opera,
Adams' next piece,
The next year, he composed his
In 1995, he completed I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky, a stage piece with libretto by poet June Jordan and staging by Peter Sellars. Inspired by musicals, Adams referred to the piece as a "songplay in two acts".[40] The main characters are seven young Americans from different social and ethnic backgrounds, all living in Los Angeles, with stories that take place around the 1994 Northridge earthquake.
Hallelujah Junction (1996) is a three-movement composition for two piano, which employs variations of a repeated two-note rhythm. The intervals between the notes remain the same through much of the piece. Adams used the same phrase for the title of his 2008 memoir.
Written to celebrate the millennium, ,
After the
Commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony,[45][46] Adams' orchestral piece My Father Knew Charles Ives (2003) is cast in three movements: "Concord", "The Lake", and "The Mountain". Though his father did not actually know American composer Charles Ives, Adams saw many similarities between the two men's lives and between their lives and his own, including their love of small-town New England life and their unfulfilled musical dreams.
Written for the
Adams' third opera,
13 years later, in 2018, The Santa Fe Opera performed Dr. Atomic throughout their summer season. The production took place in Santa Fe, just 33 miles away from the Los Alamos Laboratory, the research and development facility for the Manhattan Project. This proximity forged a deeper connection between the production and the people of Los Alamos, fostering a newfound relationship with the pueblo communities. According to Andrew Martinez, this association "became an opportunity to confront the histories and present-day experiences of pain and suffering that New Mexico citizens have endured since that rainy summer night in July 1945 when the first atomic bomb was detonated".[49] The production also notably featured a large 2,400-pound silver orb hanging from the ceiling, representing the bomb. This single set piece stood amidst an otherwise empty stage, set against the backdrop of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.[49]
After Doctor Atomic
Adams' next opera,
Adams wrote three pieces for the St. Lawrence String Quartet: his First Quartet (2008), his concerto for string quartet and orchestra, Absolute Jest (2012), and his Second Quartet (2014). Both Absolute Jest and the Second Quartet are based on fragments from Beethoven, with Absolute Jest using music from his late quartets (specifically Opus 131, Opus 135 and the Große Fuge) and the Second Quartet drawing from Beethoven's Opus 110 and 111 piano sonatas.
From 2011 to 2013, Adams wrote his two-act
Adams' most recent opera,
The Library of Congress announced on June 14, 2023 that it was acquiring Adams' manuscripts and papers for its Music Division, which also includes the papers of other notable American performing artists, such as Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, George and Ira Gershwin, Martha Graham, Charles Mingus, and Neil Simon.[59]
Personal life
Adams was married to Hawley Currens, a music teacher, from 1970 to 1974.
Musical style
The music of Adams is usually categorized as
, Adams remarked:... rather than set up small engines of motivic materials and let them run free in a kind of random play of counterpoint, I used the fabric of continually repeating cells to forge large architectonic shapes, creating a web of activity that, even within the course of a single movement, was more detailed, more varied, and knew both light and dark, serenity and turbulence.[64]
Many of Adams's ideas in composition are a reaction to the philosophy of
Adams experienced a musical epiphany after reading
Some of Adams's compositions are an amalgamation of different styles. One example is Grand Pianola Music (1981–82), a humorous piece that purposely draws its content from musical cliches. In The Dharma at Big Sur, Adams draws from literary texts such as
Adams, like other minimalists of his time (e.g. Steve Reich, Philip Glass), used a steady pulse that defines and controls the music. The pulse was best known from Terry Riley's early composition In C, and slowly more and more composers used it as a common practice. Jonathan Bernard highlighted this adoption by comparing Phrygian Gates, written in 1977, and Fearful Symmetries written eleven years later in 1988.[70]
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Adams started to add a new character to his music, which he called "the Trickster". The Trickster allowed Adams to use the repetitive style and rhythmic drive of minimalism, yet poke fun at it at the same time.[71] When Adams commented on his own characterization of particular minimalist music, he stated that he went joyriding on "those Great Prairies of non-event".[72]
Critical reception
Overview
Adams won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2003 for his 9/11 memorial piece,
The most critically divisive pieces in Adams's collection are his historical operas. At first release, Nixon in China received mostly negative press feedback. Donal Henahan, writing in The New York Times, called the Houston Grand Opera world premiere of the work "worth a few giggles but hardly a strong candidate for the standard repertory" and "visually striking but coy and insubstantial".[75] James Wierzbicki for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch described Adams's score as the weak point in an otherwise well-staged performance, noting the music as "inappropriately placid", "cliché-ridden in the abstract" and "[trafficked] heavily in Adams's worn-out Minimalist clichés".[76] With time, however, the opera has come to be revered as a great and influential production. Robert Hugill for Music and Vision called the production "astonishing ... nearly twenty years after its premier",[77] while The Guardian's Fiona Maddocks praised the score's "diverse and subtle palette" and Adams' "rhythmic ingenuity".[78]
More recently, The New York Times writer Anthony Tommasini commended Adams for his work conducting the American Composers Orchestra. The concert, which took place in April 2007 at Carnegie Hall, was a celebratory performance of Adams's work on his sixtieth birthday. Tommasini called Adams a "skilled and dynamic conductor", and noted that the music "was gravely beautiful yet restless".[79]
Klinghoffer controversy
The opera
After the September 11 attacks in 2001, performances by the Boston Symphony Orchestra of excerpts from Klinghoffer were canceled. BSO managing director Mark Volpe remarked of the decision: "We originally programmed the choruses from John Adams' The Death of Klinghoffer because we believe in it as a work of art, and we still hold that conviction. ... [Tanglewood Festival Chorus members] explained that it was a purely human reason, and that it wasn't in the least bit a criticism of the work."[82] Adams and Klinghoffer librettist Alice Goodman criticized the decision,[83] and Adams rejected a request to substitute a performance of Harmonium, saying: "The reason that I asked them not to do Harmonium was that I felt that Klinghoffer is a serious and humane work, and it's also a work about which many people have made prejudicial judgments without even hearing it. I felt that if I said, 'OK, Klinghoffer is too hot to handle, do Harmonium, that in a sense I would be agreeing with the judgment about Klinghoffer.' "[84] In response to an article by the San Francisco Chronicle's David Wiegand[85] denouncing the BSO decision, musicologist and critic Richard Taruskin accused the work of catering to "anti-American, anti-Semitic and anti-bourgeois" prejudices.[86]
A 2014 revival by the
List of works
Ballets
Operas and stage works
- Nixon in China (1987)
- The Death of Klinghoffer (1991)
- I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky (song play) (1995)
- El Niño (opera-oratorio) (2000)
- Doctor Atomic (2005)
- A Flowering Tree (2006)
- The Gospel According to the Other Mary (opera-oratorio) (2013)
- Girls of the Golden West (2017)
- Antony and Cleopatra(2022)
Orchestral works
- Common Tones in Simple Time (1979)
- Grand Pianola Music (1982)
- Shaker Loops (adaptation of the 1978 string septet for string orchestra) (1983)
- Harmonielehre (1985)
- The Chairman Dances (1985)
- Tromba Lontana (1986)
- Short Ride in a Fast Machine (1986)
- Fearful Symmetries (1988)
- El Dorado (1991)
- Lollapalooza (1995)
- Slonimsky's Earbox (1996)
- Naïve and Sentimental Music(1998)
- Guide to Strange Places (2001)
- My Father Knew Charles Ives (2003)
- Doctor Atomic Symphony (2007)
- City Noir (2009)
- I Still Dance (2019)
- Frenzy (2023)
Concertante
- piano
- Eros Piano (for piano and orchestra) (1989)
- Century Rolls (concerto for piano and orchestra) (1997)
- Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes? (concerto for piano and orchestra) (2018)
- violin
- Grawemeyer Awardfor Music composition) (1993)
- The Dharma at Big Sur (concerto for solo electric violin and orchestra) (2003)
- Scheherazade.2 (dramatic symphony for violin and orchestra) (2014)
- others
- Absolute Jest (for string quartet and orchestra) (2012)
- Saxophone Concerto (2013)
Vocal and choral works
- Harmonium (1980)
- The Nixon Tapes (three suites from Nixon in China) (1987)
- The Wound-Dresser (1989)
- Choruses from The Death of Klinghoffer(1991)
- On the Transmigration of Souls (2002)
Chamber music
- Piano Quintet (1970)
- Shaker Loops (for string septet) (1978)
- Chamber Symphony (1992)
- John's Book of Alleged Dances (for string quartet) (1994)
- Road Movies (for violin and piano) (1995)
- Gnarly Buttons (for clarinet and chamber ensemble) (1996)
- Son of Chamber Symphony (2007)
- Fellow Traveler (for string quartet) (2007)
- First Quartet (2008)
- Second Quartet (2014)
Other ensemble works
- American Standard, including "Christian Zeal and Activity" (1973)
- Grounding (1975)
- Scratchband (1996)
- Nancy's Fancy (2001)
Tape and electronic compositions
- Heavy Metal (1970)
- Studebaker Love Music (1976)
- Onyx (1976)
- Light Over Water (1983)
- Hoodoo Zephyr (1993)
Piano
- Phrygian Gates (1977)
- China Gates (1977)
- Hallelujah Junction (for two pianos) (1996)
- American Berserk (2001)
- Roll Over Beethoven (for two pianos) (2014)
- I Still Play (2017)
Film scores
- Matter of Heart (1982)
- The Cabinet of Dr. Ramirez (1991)
- American Tapestry (1999)
- I Am Love (Io sono l'amore) – pre-existing pieces by Adams (2010)
- Call Me by Your Name, contributions (2017)
Orchestrations and arrangements
- The Black Gondola (Liszt's La lugubre gondola II (1882)) (1989)
- Berceuse élégiaque (Busoni's Berceuse élégiaque (1907)) (1989)
- Wiegenlied (Liszt's Wiegenlied (1881)) (1989)
- Six Songs by Charles Ives (Ives songs) (1989–93)
- Le Livre de Baudelaire (Debussy's Cinq poèmes de Charles Baudelaire) (1994)
- La Mufa (Piazzolla tango) (1995)
- Todo Buenos Aires (Piazzolla tango) (1996)
Awards and recognition
Major awards
- Pulitzer Prize for Music for On the Transmigration of Souls (2003)[44]
- Pulitzer Prize for Music Finalist for Century Rolls (1998) and The Gospel According to the Other Mary (2014)[44]
- Erasmus Prize (2019)[90]
Grammy awards
- Best Contemporary Composition for Nixon in China (1989)[91]
- Best Contemporary Composition for El Dorado (1998)[91]
- Best Classical Album for On the Transmigration of Souls (2004)[91]
- Best Orchestral Performance for On the Transmigration of Souls (2004)[91]
- Best Classical Contemporary Composition for On the Transmigration of Souls (2004)[91]
Other awards
- Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award for Best Chamber Composition for Chamber Symphony (1994)[39]
- University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition for Violin Concerto (1995)[92]
- California Governor's Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts[39][93]
- Cyril Magnin Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts[39]
- Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters) (2015)[94]
- Harvard Arts Medal (2007)[95]
- 2018 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the category of Music and Opera[96]
- Induction into the
Memberships
- Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1997)[99]
- Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1997)[100]
Honorary Doctorates
- Honorary Doctorate of Arts from University of Cambridge (2003)[101]
- Honorary Doctorate of Arts from Northwestern University (2008)[102]
- Honorary Doctorate of Music from Duquesne University (2009)[103]
- Honorary Doctorate of Music from Harvard University (2012)[104]
- Honorary Doctorate of Music from Yale University (2013)[105]
- Honorary Doctorate of Music from Royal Academy of Music (2015)[106]
Other
- Creative Chair of the Los Angeles Philharmonic (2009–present)[107]
References
- ^ Cahill 2001, "Introduction".
- ^ Britannica 2021, "Introduction".
- ^ a b c d e Cahill 2001, "1. Life".
- ^ Britannica 2021, "Ensembles, chamber music, and orchestral works".
- ^ a b Warrack & West 1992, p. 4
- ^ Adams 2008, pp. 9–11
- ^ Ross 2007, pp. 583
- ^ a b Ross 2007, pp. 583–584
- ^ a b "Adams, John". San Francisco Classical Voice. Retrieved September 3, 2020.
- ^ Adams 2008, pp. 14–21
- ^ a b Willis, Sarah; Adams, John (September 17, 2016). "John Adams in conversation with Sarah Willis". Digital Concert Hall. Retrieved September 2, 2020.
- ^ Adams, John. "John Adams Biography". Earbox. Retrieved September 3, 2020.
- ^ "Concord high school notables". Concord High School. Archived from the original on December 21, 2013. Retrieved December 17, 2013.
- ^ Adams 2008, p. 38
- ^ "The Bach Society | News | The Harvard Crimson". www.thecrimson.com. Retrieved December 16, 2022.
- ^ a b c Ross 2007, pp. 584
- ^ "Why John Adams Won't Write an Opera About President Trump". KQED. February 7, 2017. Retrieved September 19, 2020.
- ^ a b Dyer, Richard (May 1, 2009). "Music, Taken Personally". Harvard Magazine. Retrieved September 3, 2020.
- ^ a b Britannica 2021, "Early life and career".
- ^ Adams 2008, pp. 49–50
- ^ Adams 2008, pp. 72–73
- ^ Adams, John (August 18, 2008). "Sonic Youth". The New Yorker. Retrieved November 24, 2020.
- ^ Adams 2008, p. 88
- ^ Service, Tom (September 4, 2012). "A guide to John Adams's music". The Guardian. Retrieved October 15, 2019.
- ^ Adams, John (September 23, 1979). "Common Tones in Simple Time". Earbox. Retrieved May 26, 2020.
- ^ "John Adams". San Francisco Symphony. Archived from the original on February 6, 2008. Retrieved May 26, 2020.
- ^ Adams 2008, p. 120
- ^ Mackrell, Judith (July 7, 2017). "Available Light review – Lucinda Childs' minimalist movers weave through John Adams' music". The Guardian. Retrieved August 31, 2021.
- ^ Adams 2008, p. 129
- ^ Adams, John (September 23, 1998). "Harmonielehre". John Adams. Retrieved May 30, 2020.
- ^ Service, Tom (March 11, 2014). "Symphony guide: John Adams's Harmonielehre". The Guardian. Retrieved October 15, 2019.
- ^ "Adams Nixon in China". Gramophone. September 24, 2013. Retrieved October 15, 2019.
- ^ Adams, John (September 23, 2003). "The Chairman Dances". John Adams. Retrieved May 30, 2020.
- ^ Tsioulcas, Anastasia (March 27, 2012). "The Best Classical Album of 2012?". NPR. Retrieved October 15, 2019.
- ^ Adams 2008, p. 178
- ^ Cooper, Michael (October 20, 2014). "Protests Greet Metropolitan Opera's Premiere of Klinghoffer". The New York Times. Retrieved October 15, 2019.
- ^ Adams, John (June 1994). "Chamber Symphony". Earbox. Retrieved June 7, 2020.
- ^ Adams, John (July 26, 2018). "Violin Concerto, Leila Josefowicz". Earbox. Retrieved July 14, 2020.
- ^ a b c d "1995 – John Adams". Grawemeyer Awards. July 20, 1995. Retrieved July 13, 2020.
- ^ Adams, John (September 23, 1995). "I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky". Earbox. Retrieved June 30, 2020.
- ^ Adams 2008, p. 240
- ^ Adams, John (September 23, 2002). "On the Transmigration of Souls". Earbox. Retrieved July 9, 2020.
- ^ Huizenga, Tom (September 10, 2011). "John Adams' Memory Space: 'On The Transmigration Of Souls'". NPR. Retrieved October 15, 2019.
- ^ Pulitzer.org. Retrieved September 22, 2014.
- ^ Adams, John (2003). "My Father Knew Charles Ives". Boosey & Hawkes. Retrieved July 31, 2016.
- ^ Kosman, Joshua (May 2, 2003). "Symphony premieres Adams' splendid 'Ives' / A funny and touching musical memoir". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved July 31, 2016.
- ^ Adams 2008, pp. 233–234
- ^ Adams 2008, pp. 234–235
- ^ S2CID 214198177.
- ^ Cooper, Michael (July 6, 2018). "Bringing Doctor Atomic to the Birthplace of the Bomb". The New York Times. Retrieved October 15, 2019.
- ^ Adams, John (September 23, 1982). "A Flowering Tree". Earbox. Retrieved July 19, 2020.
- ^ Woolfe, Zachary (June 1, 2012). "Composer's New Passion Unspooled". The New York Times.
- ^ Adams, John. "The Gospel According to the Other Mary". Boosey & Hawkes. Retrieved September 4, 2020.
- ^ Adams, John (September 14, 2015). "Scheherazade.2". Earbox. Retrieved July 19, 2020.
- ^ Anthony Tommasini (March 27, 2015). "Review: John Adams Unveils Scheherazade.2, an Answer to Male Brutality". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 3, 2022. Retrieved April 4, 2015.
- ^ Zoe Madonna (March 27, 2015). "Violinist Josefowicz Shines in a Modern Scheherazade". Retrieved April 4, 2015.
- ^ Jay Nordlinger (March 26, 2015). "A Sick and Twisted Culture". National Review. Retrieved April 4, 2015.
- ^ Cooper, Michael (June 14, 2016). "John Adams and Peter Sellars Again Joining Forces for New Opera". The New York Times. Retrieved July 19, 2020.
- ^ "Library of Congress Acquires Music Manuscripts and Papers of Composer John Adams" (Press release). June 14, 2023.
- ^ Sanchez-Behar 2020, p. [page needed].
- ^ Tommasini, Anthony (September 30, 2012). "SF Symphony Plays Mahler and Samuel Carl Adams". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 3, 2022. Retrieved October 1, 2010.
- OCLC 52381088.
- ^ Ross 2007, pp. 584.
- ^ "John Adams on Harmonium". Earbox.xom. Archived from the original on January 17, 2013. Retrieved September 22, 2014.
- ^ May 2006, pp. 7–10.
- ^ Broyles 2004, pp. 169–170.
- ^ Schwarz 2008, p. 175.
- ^ Schwartz & Godfrey 1993, p. 336.
- ^ Schwarz 2008, p. 182.
- ^ Jonathan W. Bernard, "Minimalism, Postminimalism, and the Resurgence of Tonality in Recent American Music" Journal of American Music, Spring 2003, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 112–133.
- ^ Stayton, Richard (June 16, 1991). "The Trickster of Modern Music : Composer John Adams Keeps Reinventing Himself, to Wilder and Wilder Applause". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 31, 2016.
- ^ Heisinger 1989.
- ^ "Long Ride in a Stalled Machine". Thestandingroom.com. Archived from the original on July 11, 2011. Retrieved September 22, 2014.
- ^ Kozinn, Allan (March 23, 2005). "Beyond Minimalism: The Later Works of John Adams". The New York Times. Retrieved February 11, 2009.
- ^ Henahan, Donal (October 24, 1987). "Opera: Nixon in China". The New York Times. Retrieved February 11, 2009.
- ^ Wierzbicki, James (December 6, 1992). "John Adams: Nixon in China." Archived February 10, 2008, at the Wayback Machine St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
- ^ Hugill, Robert. "Ensemble: A Mythic Story: Nixon in China." Music & Vision. July 2, 2006.
- ^ Maddocks, Fiona (February 22, 2020). "Nixon in China review – a gripping human drama". The Guardian. Retrieved September 7, 2020.
- ^ Tommasini, Anthony (April 30, 2007). "Doing Everything but Playing the Music." The New York Times. Retrieved February 11, 2009.
- ^ Kozinn, Allan (September 11, 1991). "Klinghoffer Daughters Protest Opera". The New York Times. Retrieved February 8, 2016.
- ^ Cummings, Conrad (September 27, 1991). "What the Opera 'Klinghoffer' Achieves". The New York Times. Retrieved February 8, 2016.
- ^ Sheldon, Molly. Music America Needs Now NewMusicBox. December 1, 2001.
- ^ Kozinn, Allan (November 14, 2001). "'Klinghoffer' Composer Fights His Cancellation". The New York Times.
- ^ Swed, Mark. "Klinghoffer: Too Hot to Handle?", Los Angeles Times. November 20, 2001
- ^ Wiegand, David. "Boston Symphony missed the point on art and grieving", San Francisco Chronicle. November 7, 2001
- ^ Taruskin, Richard (December 9, 2001). "Music; Music's Dangers and the Case for Control". The New York Times.
- ^ Giuliani, Rudy (October 20, 2014). "Rudy Giuliani: Why I Protested The Death of Klinghoffer". The Daily Beast. Retrieved October 21, 2014.
- ^ Cooper, Michael (October 20, 2014). "Protests Greet Metropolitan Opera's Premiere of Klinghoffer". The New York Times. Retrieved October 21, 2014.
- ^ Bravin, Jess (October 28, 2014). On ‘The Death of Klinghoffer,’ Justice Ginsburg Finds for the Defense The Wall Street Journal.
- ^ "John Adams Wins 2019 Erasmus Prize". BroadwayWorld.com. February 22, 2019. Retrieved April 4, 2019.
- ^ a b c d e "John Adams". Grammy.com. November 19, 2019. Retrieved March 2, 2020.
- ^ "1995 – John Adams". Archived from the original on July 24, 2014.
- ^ "Composer John Adams to Present Tanner Lectures at Yale University". YaleNews. October 8, 2009. Retrieved September 2, 2020.
- ^ "Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic: John Adams's 70th Birthday Year" (PDF). New York Philharmonic. February 1, 2019. Retrieved April 4, 2019.
- ^ "Harvard Arts medal". Thecrimson.como. Retrieved September 22, 2014.
- ^ "XI Edición Archives". Premios Fronteras (in Spanish). Retrieved March 2, 2020.
- ^ "John Adams". Kennedy Center. Retrieved March 18, 2024.
- American Classical Music Hall of Fame. Retrieved March 18, 2024.
- ^ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter A" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved April 1, 2011.
- ^ "Current Members". American Association of Arts and Letters. Archived from the original on June 24, 2016. Retrieved April 1, 2011.
- ^ "Honorary Degree Ceremony 2003". University of Cambridge. June 23, 2003. Retrieved October 15, 2019.
- ^ "Recipients: Office of the Provost". Northwestern University. Retrieved November 10, 2020.
- ^ "Duquesne Presents Honorary Degree to Renowned Composer". Duquesne University Office of Marketing and Communications. Retrieved January 5, 2017.
- ^ "Eight receive honorary degrees". Harvard News Office. May 24, 2012. Retrieved May 24, 2012.
- ^ "Yale awards 10 honorary degrees at 2013 Commencement". YaleNews. May 20, 2013. Retrieved November 10, 2020.
- ^ "James Jolly's citation for John Adams's Honorary Doctorate from the Royal Academy of Music". Gramophone. Retrieved November 10, 2020.
- ^ "John Adams". LA Phil. Retrieved March 2, 2020.
Bibliography
- Adams, John (2008). Hallelujah Junction: Composing an American Life. London: Faber and Faber. OCLC 961365919.
- Broyles, Michael (2004). Mavericks and Other Traditions in American Music. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-10045-7.
- ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0. (subscription or UK public library membershiprequired)
- Heisinger, Brent (Winter 1989). "American Minimalism in the 1980s". JSTOR 3051914.
- May, Thomas, ed. (2006). The John Adams Reader: Essential Writings on an American Composer. Pompton Plains, New Jersey: Amadeus. ISBN 1-57467-132-4.
- ISBN 978-0-312-42771-9.
- Sanchez-Behar, Alexander (2020). John Adams: A Research and Information Guide. New York: Routledge. OCLC 1130319430.
- Schwartz, Elliott; Godfrey, Daniel (1993). Music since 1945: Issues, Materials, and Literature. Schirmer Books. ISBN 978-0-02-873040-0.
- Schwarz, K. Robert (2008) [1996]. Minimalists. London: Phaidon Press. ISBN 978-0-7148-4773-3.
- "John Adams | Biography, Music, Notable Works & Facts". Encyclopædia Britannica. Chicago. June 22, 2021.
{{cite encyclopedia}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ISBN 0-19-869164-5.
Further reading
- Butterworth, Neil. "John Adams", Dictionary of American Classical Composers. 2nd ed. New York and London: Routledge, 2005. ISBN 0-415-93848-1
- Daines, Matthew. "The Death of Klinghoffer by John Adams", American Musicvol. 16, no. 3 (Autumn 1998), pp. 356–358. [review]
- Richardson, John. "John Adams: A Portrait and a Concert of American Music", American Music vol. 23, no. 1 (Spring 2005), pp. 131–133. [review]
- Rimer, J. Thomas. "Nixon in China by John Adams", American Music vol. 12, no. 3 (Autumn 1994), pp. 338–341. [review]
- Schwarz, K. Robert. "Process vs. Intuition in the Recent Works of Steve Reich and John Adams", American Music vol. 8, no. 3 (Autumn 1990), pp. 245–273.
External links
Archives at | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
|
||||
How to use archival material |
- Official website
- Profile, Boosey & Hawkes
- Profile, Cdmc
- "Discovering John Adams". BBC Radio 3.
- Programs regarding John Adams, NPR Music
- John Adams at IMDb
- John Coolidge Adams at Library of Congress, with 115 library catalog records
- Composer's entry on IRCAM's database
Specific operas
- "Doctor Atomic: An Opera by John Adams and Peter Sellars" on doctor-atomic.com. References 2005 world premiere performances at the San Francisco Opera.
- Essay on Doctor Atomic by Thomas May. Archived October 19, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
- "The Myth of History": Interview with Adams and Peter Sellars about Nixon in China
Interviews
- "A Vast Synthesising Approach", interview with Robert Davidson, February 27, 1999
- John Adams (November 11, 2000). "In the Center of American Music". NewMusicBox (Interview). Interviewed by Frank J. Oteri.
- "An American Portrait: Composer John Adams", WGBH Radio, Boston