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#John adams composer series

Being set just 15 years before it was written, Nixon in China was unique in that many of the characters portrayed could have attended the Houston premiere. The opera is based upon the historic meeting of Richard Nixon and Chinese chairman Mao Tse-Tung in Beijjing, 1972 – the first time a US president had visited the People’s Republic of China. With its highly political subject matter and bold mix of contemporary and old fashioned operatic traditions, Adam’s first foray into stage music became an overnight sensation. What are the best pieces by Saint-Saëns?.

#John adams composer series

Recommended recording: Edo de Waart/San Francisco Symphony and Chorus on ECM New Series These poems define the three movements of the work, which has become one of his most well-known. In the end he based the piece on three poems: ‘Negative Love’ by John Donne and Emily Dickinson’s ‘Because I could not stop for Death’ and ‘Wild Nights’. While searching for inspiration, the composer (in his own words) ‘cast far and wide for a text to satisfy a musical image … one of human voices – many of them – riding upon waves of rippling sound’. Written for SATB chorus and orchestra, Harmonium was composed in a small studio on the third floor of Adams’s Haight-Ashbury townhouse.

5 of the best pieces for Piano Left Hand.

Recommended recording: Marin Alsop/Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra on Naxos. Its hugely successful premiere propelled Adams into the international limelight. However, expressive melodies and a strong narrative arc set the work apart from its minimalistic counterparts. In this, his second attempt at presenting the material, he employs the same principles of repetition – or ‘loops’ – that pervade the music of Riley and Reich. Shaker Loops for string septet was written using fragments of an earlier string quartet Wavemaker, which, according to Adams himself, was poorly conceived and had a disastrous first performance

A guide to Shostakovich's Symphony No.

Five of the best modern Christmas carols.

Here’s a quick look at what we think are the six best works he’s come up with since… With a flock of students at his disposal – what he described as a ‘working laboratory’ – Adams had a ready-made platform from which to develop this style. However, his own musical style took inspiration from jazz and the ‘pure’ minimalism of Terry Riley and Steve Reich. In 1972 he took up a post at the San Francisco Conservatory, organising concerts of ‘experimental’ music by composers like John Cage and Morton Feldman.

What happens in Stravinsky's The Firebird?.