Composer · Contemporary
John Adams
1947– · American
John Adams (born 1947) is among the most frequently performed living composers, and one of the defining American musical voices of his era. Emerging in the 1970s and 1980s in the wake of minimalism, he forged from its pulsing, repetitive language a richer, more dramatic and harmonically expansive style entirely his own. He first reached a wide public with works like Harmonielehre and Short Ride in a Fast Machine, and went on to write a series of landmark operas drawn from contemporary history (Nixon in China, The Death of Klinghoffer, Doctor Atomic) that redefined what opera could address. A conductor as well as a composer, deeply versed in the orchestra, he has produced a steady stream of major orchestral scores. His music combines rhythmic drive and brilliant, sensuous orchestration with a distinctly American openness, wit and grandeur.
Works
- After the Fall 2
- Doctor Atomic Symphony 1
- Feast of the Passover, from The Gospel According to the Other Mary 1
- Frenzy 2
- Harmonielehre 2
- Shaker Loops 1
- Short Ride in a Fast Machine 2
- The Chairman Dances 2
Performed at
Upcoming
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Sheku’s Saint-Saëns and ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ Adams · Saint-Saëns · Mussorgsky
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Rattle: John Adams at 80 Adams
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LSO Futures: Elim Chan Conducts Adams and Three New Works Adams · Arafah · Järventausta · Jeong
Sources 1
- John Adams (composer), Wikipedia