Adams, John Coolidge

▪ 1998

      American composer John Adams, whose works were among the most performed of contemporary composers, was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1997. He had already won a number of honours, including a Guggenheim fellowship in 1982 and the Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition in 1995. The latest honour, however, set an official seal of approval on his work.

      Adams was born on Feb. 15, 1947, in Worcester, Mass. He became proficient on the clarinet at an early age (sometimes free-lancing with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and performing with other groups) and by his teenage years was composing. His teachers at Harvard University (A.B., 1969; M.A., 1971) included Leon Kirchner and Roger Sessions. Adams was the first person in the history of the university to be allowed to submit a musical composition as a senior honours thesis. After graduation he moved to California, where from 1972 to 1982 he taught at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. In 1978 he founded and directed the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra's series "New and Unusual Music," and he was composer in residence with the orchestra from 1982 to 1985.

      Although his early compositions were in an academic style, Adams soon began drawing on much broader sources, including pop, jazz, electronic music, and minimalism. His use of minimalist techniques—characterized by repetition and simplicity—came to be tempered by expressive, even neo-Romantic, elements. His works encompassed a wide range of genres and included Shaker Loops (1978), chamber music for string septet; Harmonium (1980), a cantata for chorus and orchestra using the poetry of John Donne and Emily Dickinson; Grand Pianola Music (1981-82), a reworking of early-20th-century American popular music for instrumental ensemble, three sopranos, and two pianos; Harmonielehre (1984-85), an homage to Arnold Schoenberg, whose music was the antithesis of minimalism, for orchestra; Fearful Symmetries (1988), for orchestra; and Wound-Dresser (1988), for baritone and orchestra. One of his especially popular orchestral works was Short Ride in a Fast Machine (1986).

      Adams's most ambitious works, however, were two operas, both created in collaboration with director Peter Sellars, poet Alice Goodman, and choreographer Mark Morris. The first, Nixon in China (1987), took as its subject the visit of U.S. Pres. Richard M. Nixon to China in 1972. The second, The Death of Klinghoffer (1991), was based on the hijacking by Palestinian terrorists of the cruise ship Achille Lauro in 1985 and the killing of a disabled Jewish passenger. Both operas received a number of performances, and both were recorded, with Nixon in China winning a Grammy in 1989. Both works also had their detractors, but a number of critics found them to be among the most significant of contemporary operas, arguing that they succeeded in melding the communicative and expressive requirements of the form with eclectic musical styles and minimalist techniques. Meanwhile, The Chairman Dances, subtitled "Foxtrot for Orchestra," which was written for Nixon in China but dropped from the final score, became one of Adams's most often played orchestral works.

ROBERT RAUCH

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