John Adams | Artist

John Coolidge Adams is an American composer and conductor born 1947 in Worcester, Massachusetts. His music is rooted in minimalism and he is among the most regularly performed composers of contemporary classical music. Particularly noted for his operas, which are often centred around recent historical events, his works include orchestral, concertante, vocal, choral, chamber, electroacoustic and piano music. Initially Adams was influenced by his study of John Cage's Silence: Lectures and Writings. Later, whilst teaching at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music he developed his own minimalist aesthetic, which was first fully realised in Phrygian Gates (1977) and later in the string septet Shaker Loops. Adams' first opera was Nixon in China (1987), which was the first of many collaborations with theatre director Peter Sellars. Next came the opera The Death of Klinghoffer (1991) which was based on the PLO's 1985 hijacking and murder of Leon Klinghoffer. In many ways Adams' music is developed from the minimalist tradition of Steve Reich and Philip Glass however he tends to more readily engage in the immense orchestral textures and climaxes of late Romanticism in the vein of Wagner and Mahler. Standout albums include Phrygian Gates & Shaker Loops (1980), Nixon in China (1988), Gnarly Buttons & John's Alleged Book of Dances (1998), Road Movies (2004), The Dharma at Big Sur & My Father Knew Charles Ives (2006) and Absolute Jest (2015). Adams won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2003 for his 9/11 memorial piece, On the Transmigration of Souls.

Artist Website: earbox.com

Featured Albums: John Adams

Related Artists: Kronos Quartet

Video Clips: In Berlin, Eros Piano, Grand Pianola Music