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John luther adams

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John Coolidge Adams Biography, Life, Interesting Facts

John Coolidge Adams was an American composer and conductor of opera and classical music.

Early Life

John Coolidge Adams was born on February 15, 1947, in Worcester, state of Massachusetts. He is the son of Carl John Adams and his wife Elinore Mary Adams. He grew up in the region of New England. He went to school at the Concord High School in New Hampshire. He joined Harvard where he got his degree in Arts in 1969 and earned his Master in arts in 1971. Adams became a music tutor at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music until 1984.

He began composing music at the tender age of 10. Adams got the musical genetics and moral encouragement from his parents. They were both amateur jazz musicians. By the age of 13, he witnessed his composition played on the stage. He studied music as a passion during his school days under several composers. He learned how to play the clarinet among other musical instruments. They included Leon Kirchner, Roger Sessions, and David Del Tredici. He played the clarinet on several symphony orch

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Adams, John Coolidge (15th February 1947-Present)

He is a composer born in Worcester, Massachusetts who was taught the clarinet by his father and played in community orchestras and marching bands while he was young.  He was a  graduate of Harvard University taught by Leon Kirchner, and during his time there was a conductor in the Harvard University Bach Society Orchestra as well as an occasional clarinetist for the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

He became a teacher at the San Francisco Conservatory prior to joining the San Francisco Symphony as contemporary music adviser and later as composer-in-residence.

Nixon in China was the first of his collaborations with the theatre director Peter Sellars and the poet Alice Goodman, and is possibly his best known opera which was premiered by the Houston Grand Opera and awarded the “Best Contemporary Composition” Grammy Award.

In 1993 he became Artist in Association for the BBC Symphony Orchestra and his comments on receiving the position were “the position is sufficiently unstructured and flexible to allow any number o

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John Adams
by
Alice Cotter
  • LAST REVIEWED: 24 September 2020
  • LAST MODIFIED: 24 September 2020
  • DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199757824-0279

  • Adams, John. Hallelujah Junction: Composing an American Life. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008.

    This autobiographical account charts the evolution of the composer’s aesthetics and compositional practice from the 1960s to 2007. Adams organizes the memoir chronologically, detailing the genesis of major works, namely the operas. Includes firsthand account of Adams’s relationship to musical minimalism, childhood, influences, and individuals who helped shape the composer’s career.

  • Cahill, Sarah. “Adams, John.” In Grove Music Online.

    Cahill, a professional pianist and writer on music, provides an excellent biographical summary, contextual details, and overview of Adams’s music up to 2008. The author offers general comments about the composer’s stylistic tendencies. A partial chronological work list through 2006 appears.

  • John Adams.

    Curated by Adams himself, the composer’s official websit

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