Born
February 15, 1947
Country
United States of America
John Adams is a composer, conductor, and creative thinker, who occupies a unique position in the world of classical music. His works—both operatic and symphonic—stand out among contemporary classical compositions for their depth of expression, brilliance of sound, and the profoundly humanist nature of their themes.
Over the past 25 years, Adams’s music has played a decisive role in turning the tide of contemporary musical aesthetics away from academic modernism and toward a more expansive, expressive language, entirely characteristic of his New World surroundings. He began composing at age ten and heard his first orchestral piece performed while still a teenager.
After earning two degrees from Harvard, he moved to Northern California in 1971 and has since lived in the San Francisco Bay area. In 1985, Adams began a collaboration with the poet Alice Goodman and stage director Peter Sellars that resulted in two groundbreaking operas: Nixon in China (1984-87) and The Death of Klinghoffer (1990-91). Produced worldwide, these works are among the most-performed operas of the last three decades.
Other Adams works include: Dharma at Big Sur (2003), for electric violin and orchestra, inspired by literary impressions of the Californian landscape by such writers as Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, and Henry Miller; the Doctor Atomic Symphony (2005), drawn from opera; and A Flowering Tree, written for the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth and premiere in Vienna in 2006.
Adams’s works are among the very few written in our own time that have achieved repertory status, appearing regularly on programs by orchestras internationally. Nonesuch Records has released first recordings of all of his works, both symphonic and theatrical, since 1985.
John Adams is an active conductor, appearing with the world’s greatest orchestras and with programs that combine his own works with a wide variety of repertoire from all time periods. Adams’s 2009-2010 season included appearances as Artist in Residence at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, a residency with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, two Carnegie Hall appearances with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and ensemble ACJW, an engagement with the London Sinfonietta, a two-week residency with the London Symphony Orchestra in Paris, and a two week residency with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C.
In 2003, Lincoln Center presented a festival titled “John Adams: An American Master,” the most extensive festival that the venue has ever devoted to a living composer. He became the Creative Chair for the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2008, and was the artistic mind behind that orchestra’s 2009 “West Coast/Left Coast” festival.
Hallelujah Junction, John Adams’s autobiography, was named by the New York Times as one of the “most notable books of 2008.” The John Adams Reader: Essential Writings on an American Composer, edited by Thomas May and published by Amadeus Press, is a 400-page summary of writings about Adams and his music and is the first in-depth anthology of texts dealing with more than 30 years of the composer’s creative life.
Adams has received countless awards and honorary degrees, including the National Endowment for the Arts Opera Honors Award and an induction into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame.
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Video
Get out your opera glasses and prepare to take a look at the history and evolution of an art form over four hundred years old. Learn how singers train and condition their voices, become familiar with some of the stage’s most tragic love affairs, and discover how theatre and music combined can tell epic stories in unforgettable ways.
Meet great composers, explore the vast musical world of the orchestra, study the science behind the instruments, and discover how classical music is anything but boring.
Get inside the mind of a composer—from a popular song, to a Broadway musical, to a symphony, how does a composer write music?
You might see some of these instruments when you come to the Kennedy Center, watch a performance by your school band, or at any other concert you attend! Click the slides to learn more about some of the most frequently spotted instruments in each family.
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Gifts and grants to educational programs at the Kennedy Center are provided by The Paul M. Angell Family Foundation; Bank of America; Capital One; The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation; Carnegie Corporation of New York; The Ednah Root Foundation; Harman Family Foundation; William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust; the Kimsey Endowment; The Kiplinger Foundation; Laird Norton Family Foundation; Lois and Richard England Family Foundation; Dr. Gary Mather and Ms. Christina Co Mather; The Markow Totevy Foundation; Dr. Gerald and Paula McNichols Foundation; The Morningstar Foundation; Myra and Leura Younker Endowment Fund; The Irene Pollin Audience Development and Community Engagement Initiatives;
Prince Charitable Trusts; Dr. Deborah Rose and Dr. Jan A. J. Stolwijk; Rosemary Kennedy Education Fund; The Embassy of the United Arab Emirates; The Victory Foundation; The Volgenau Foundation; Volkswagen Group of America; Jackie Washington; GRoW @ Annenberg and Gregory Annenberg Weingarten and Family; Wells Fargo; and generous contributors to the Abe Fortas Memorial Fund and by a major gift to the fund from the late Carolyn E. Agger, widow of Abe Fortas. Additional support is provided by the National Committee for the Performing Arts..
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