This Thursday at 3pm EST, join John Adams and conductor David Robertson for a real-time discussion of Doctor Atomic Symphony. They’ll give a close reading of the score, using a recording by the Juilliard Orchestra conducted by Adams himself. This is part of the live-score chat series hosted by Boosey & Hawkes.
A very happy birthday to John Coolidge Adams, who turns 73 today. The clip above, City Noir, is one of the pieces on the program when Adams guest conducts the Seattle Symphony in April. He’ll also present Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes, his brilliant new piano concerto, with Jeremy Denk as the fiendish soloist.
(I haven’t noticed yet whether Sony Classical has sent out a message celebrating “the composer of Become Ocean.”)
John Adams’s latest composition was recently given its world premiere by Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony. Here’s my program note introducing I Still Dance:
The unique creative exchange between John Adams and the San Francisco Symphony spans four decades and represents one of the most significant success stories in the collaboration among contemporary American composers, orchestras, and audiences.
My story for the Juilliard Journal on John Adams as he returns to conduct the Juilliard Orchestra next week at Alice Tully Hall. Program details here.
“What does it take to move us from our customary place?” John Adams asked in his commencement speech to the Juilliard class of 2011. “That is what we want when we confront a work of art, whether it’s a completely new creation or an impassioned performance of a masterwork from the past.” The acclaimed composer returns to Juilliard December 10—this time to conduct the Juilliard Orchestra in a program that pairs the Brahms Fourth Symphony with two 21st-century pieces: Ciel d’hiver by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho and Adams’ own Doctor Atomic Symphony.
JULIA BULLOCK (KITTY OPPENHEIMER). PHOTO CREDIT: KEN HOWARD FOR SANTA FE OPERA, 2018
Here’s my review for Musical America of the new production of John Adams’s Doctor Atomic, which Peter Sellars directed for Santa Fe Opera:
SANTA FE, NM—As with any classic tragedy, from the outset we already know the denouement of Doctor Atomic: The world’s first atomic bomb will be successfully detonated in the New Mexican desert at dawn on July 16, 1945—a prelude to the atrocities of its use less than a month later on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
In the contemporary music world, writing opera tends to generate the sexiest headlines and, at least temporarily, to garner more widespread attention….
When “Nixon in China” had its premiere at Houston Grand Opera on Oct. 22, 1987, there had never been anything quite like it. No previous American opera — perhaps no opera, ever — had so boldly dealt with recent political history…
First night of the BBC Proms 2017! Tonight’s program includes a world premiere for the opener — Tom Coult’sSt John’s Dance — Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the remarkable Igor Levit as soloist, and Harmonium by John Adams, with Edward Gardner on the podium.
Harmonium is an early Adams work — his first major commission for San Francisco Symphony — and sets poetry by Emily Dickinson and John Donne. Adams recalls:
Harmonium was composed in 1980 in a small studio on the third floor of an old Victorian house in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. Those of my friends who knew both the room and the piece of music were amused that a piece of such spaciousness should emerge from such cramped quarters.
My essay for tonight’s program by the Los Angeles Master Chorale. On the menu are some of the great choruses from John Adams’s operas (with brand-new piano transcriptions) and one of his favorite works of all time, Stravinsky’s Les noces.
Today John Adams celebrates his 70th birthday. We have countless reasons to be grateful for what he’s already given the world. And he has so much left to say, as works of more recent vintage like The Gospel According to the Other Mary demonstrate.
You would be forgiven for imagining a clever director had coached a miniature army of body doubles, or that a music-mad bioengineer had disseminated a few clones: John Adams seems to be intercontinentally omnipresent this season—in London, Paris, Berlin, New York, Los Angeles. This month, when he actually reaches the biblical milestone of 70 (February 15), he is right back home, with his music as the centerpiece of a three-weekend celebration by the San Francisco Symphony.
The film One Night in Miami imagines a night in 1964 where Cooke, Clay, Malcolm X and Jim Brown meet. We listen back to interviews with biographers Peter Guralnick, Jonathan Eig and Alex Haley.
Andra Day plays the jazz legend with conviction in The United States vs. Billie Holiday. Nevertheless, the film fails in its attempt to show the heartache and hard living that shaped its subject.
Jesse Tyler Ferguson discusses his time on Modern Family and his new cookbook, Food Between Friends. Then, he plays a game about his home state of New Mexico.
Comics Samantha Ruddy and Luke Mones are hopelessly devoted to hearing Jonathan Coulton remix classic Grease songs to be about, you guessed it, Greece!
Nico Santos and Zeke Smithhave a carefree time guessing whether different items are Bath & Body Works scents, meal kits, or still life paintings until they are suddenly interrupted by a smoke alarm.
Nico Santos and Zeke Smith reveal what actors in hospital dramas are really saying behind their masks, then play a game about superhero power-ups. Go go gadget, PUBLIC RADIO SHOW!
Ophira Eisenberg and Jonathan Coulton discuss fighting and succumbing to the need for reading glasses. Not related, but has anyone seen my reading glasses? I swear I just had them.
Our occasional series on storytelling in video games returns with a look at The Last of Us Part II, which pulls a perspective switch on players that forces them to confront their role in the game.
A husband and wife photography team create avant-garde and futuristic shoots for their clients. The couple hopes the portraits transcend the typical images of beauty.