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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 techniquescharacterized by repetition and
simplicitycame to be tempered by expressive, even neo-Romantic, elements. His
works encompass a wide range of genres and include 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 (198182), a
reworking of early 20th-century American popular music for instrumental ensemble,
three sopranos, and two pianos; Harmonielehre (198485), for orchestra, an homage
to Arnold Schoenberg, whose music was the antithesis of minimalism; and WoundDresser (1988), for baritone and orchestra, a work based on Walt Whitmans poems
about his experience as a nurse in the American Civil War. One of Adamss especially
popular orchestral works was the fanfare Short Ride in a Fast Machine (1986). The
recording of another popular orchestral work, El Dorado (1991), won a 1997 Grammy
Award. Later large-scale works include the Violin Concerto (1993) and My Father
Knew Charles Ives (2003), for orchestra, which alludes to Ivess works and
compositional methods.
Adamss most ambitious works, however, were his operas. The first two were created
in collaboration with the director Peter Sellars, the poet Alice Goodman, and the
choreographer Mark Morris. Nixon in China (1987) took as its subject the visit of
U.S. Pres. Richard M. Nixon to China in 1972. 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. The composers third opera,
Doctor Atomic (2005), was the story of the scientists in Los Alamos, N.M., U.S., who
during World War II devised the first atomic bomb. Sellars compiled the libretto from
a variety of sources, including the favourite poetry of the Los Alamos physicist J.
Robert Oppenheimer as well as declassified government documents of the period.
In a departure from his 2005 statement that if opera is actually going to be a part of
our livesit has to deal with contemporary topics, Adams based his fourth opera, A
Flowering Tree (2006), on South Indian folktales; again Sellars was his collaborator.
The work was created in homage to Mozart, taking as its inspiration The Magic Flute
(1791).
Adamss operas have been regularly performed, and they have been recorded; Nixon
in China won a 1988 Grammy Award. A number of critics have found them to be
among the most significant of contemporary operas. Adams created orchestral and
choral works from his opera scores, including The Nixon Tapes (1987), for voices and
orchestra, and Doctor Atomic Symphony (2005). The Chairman Dances, subtitled
Foxtrot for Orchestra, which was written for Nixon in China but dropped from the
final score, became one of Adamss most-often-played orchestral works.
After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City commissioned a work from
Adams: On the Transmigration of Souls, for orchestra, chorus, childrens choir, and
prerecorded sound track, first performed Sept. 19, 2002. The text of the work derived
from three sources: fragments from notices posted at the World Trade Center site by
friends and relatives of the missing, interviews published in the New York Times, and
randomly chosen names of victims. For this composition Adams was awarded the
2003 Pulitzer Prize in music; the recording won three 2004 Grammy Awards.
Adams received numerous other honours and awards as well. He was elected to the
American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1997. Also in 1997 he was named
Composer of the Year by the venerable magazine Musical America. A festival in his
honour at Lincoln Center in April and May of 2003 was the most extensive singlecomposer festival that had ever been held there.