Research Paper on John Adams: The Hitmaker Who Revolutionized Music

Introduction

John Coolidge Adams is one of the greatest hitmakers and performed by America's composers. Born on 15th February 1947 in Massachusetts, a place that contributed much to his musical career due to New England's music culture.Adams started composing as early as ten years and made his first performance at 13 years. Details in the New Yorker, Adam's new and flexible language, increased his work quality as he was able to make large-scale productions that were emphatically fashioned and attractive.

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His unique position in the American music as a conductor, composer and creative thinker contributed to Adam's legacy that stands out in the contemporary classical works. Most of his works had an in-depth expression, themes remained humanistic, and Adam maintained brilliance in his musical sounds. In most cases, I consider parental care as a determinant or influencing action to an infant or child's destiny; the reason why I say this is that most of Adam's performances and work were significant as a result of the existence of his father. Adam learned the clarinet from his father and made successful practices and performances in community orchestras and bands while at his formative years. However, his musical career was also shaped not only by New England's artistic traditions but also by the successful studies that he made at Harvard University and participation in concerts at Boston Symphony Orchestra.

In 1971 Adams moved to San Francisco Bay immediately. He graduated from Harvard, a place where he has lived ever since. He is known for a wide range of media that outspans his creativity such as the opera, orchestral works, instrumental and electronic music, dance, film, and video. Among the most frequently performed and best pieces include but not limited to Shaker Loops, Harmonium, Chairman Dance, and Harmonielehre. Several dance companies choreographed Adam's music for instance, the New York City Ballets and Dance Theatre of Harlem in conjunction with Garth Fagan and peter Martins respectively. The major orchestra has programmed Adam's works throughout Europe, United States, Asia and Australia. Through this, he was able to grab the opportunity of a sought-after conductor that enabled him to combine his works with several diversified repertoires right from Beethoven, Mozart and Ives, Ellington, Carter, and Zappa. Further, Adams appeared with many Symphonies like Chicago, Atlanta, Cleveland Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw, London, and Vienna Symphony, among others.

John Adams is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize (2003) and the Grawemeyer Award of 1993; he is a tutor at San Francisco Conservatory of Music from 1972 to 1984, a music producer for different series for Public broadcasting System including the 1976 award-winning series "The Adams Chronicles."

Different Musical Genres to Which Adams Contributed

In his writings, John Adams says that his work comprised both a history distortion and a foster of a three-decade poor policy of music. The composer put his work strongholds in musical pops, electronic music, jazz, and minimalism. In making contributions to jazz, John Adams composes symphonies of "City Noir" and "Saxophone Concerto." I like the jazz elements and the classic fusion that the composer applies to this music. The all-round 35 minutes long music contains three movements that involve different styles and sound piths. From the 1940s and 50s film Noir movies, it is well depicted that this music takes a Los Angeles homage.

It is so amazing to find how the loopy melodic lines and the kinds of music lazy never gets old for bedroom use primarily when heard from the echoes of screen's composers who bring a lot of pulsing accompaniments and tough moments. Moreover, talking of the jazz elements in the music composition, there are central slow movement solos of the trombone and saxophone in the phases of the song as well as some hark-back moments that bring the music generation further to the world of Korngold and Rachmaninov.

These allusions and fluency of jazz that are incorporated in the musical style make this music soft, safe and comfortable. The well-developed style that has been described to have existed for more than 20years makes me consider Adams as a composer who is content enough in finding bounds of the already performed aspects and easy-to-apply musical structures that portray significant symphonies that are more vigorous than as compared to what he achieved. However, comparing the performance of the two (City Noir and Saxophone Concerto), none of the pieces is favored, in as much as I like the jazz elements in the music, the concerts turns to be an inconsiderate nostalgia to me as the music is shot with jazz saxophonist memories that make it safe although the composer unconvincingly brings an irresistible energy that forces the solo to do the unexpected due to this infectious energy.

Adams is still characterized as a minimalist because of his minimalism and romanticism works that were well-integrated and synthesized with these styles. Pieces like "Harmonielehre, Guide to Strange Places, and Absolute Jest were the most greatly composed work that revolved around minimalistic nature. In Harmonielehre, translated as a treatise on harmony, or the book of concord; unlike Schoenberg, Adams's work is on a parody of different views that tries to reflect on subsidiary relationship to a model of the century such as Sibelius and Gurrelieder symphony. The three-phase movement work for orchestra merges the minimalism development techniques with a late romanticism expressive and harmonic world of fin de siecle. The reason as to why I consider this work more of the postmodernity is due to its refrain on the past, although it does this without an entire irony in its composition.

Just like he explains of his Harmonielehre work that has three parts, Adams uses minimalist techniques more often in his works; the repetitive patterns which he termed as the Trickster enabled him to poke fun and engross the rhythmic drive to the minimalism, and not being a strict observer of the movements makes his works more attractive and captivating audiences' senses to want to have much of its tidbits. Being born ten years after Philip Glass and Steve Reich, inspire his writings as more of developmental and directions with climaxes and other elements of romanticism. Although most people do not understand how Adams applied different styles of his era as well as the post-modernity era, many of his works have an amalgamated stylistic approach, for instance, the Grand Pianola Music of 1981-82. According to, this peace has a humorous approach that purposely takes its content from musical cliches.

The Power, Beauty, and Originality of John Adams Major Works

Shaker Loops

The work began as a string quartet titled Wavemaker, written earlier in the year and composed at the all of 1978 with its first performance being done on the same year on a December at Hellman Hall in San Francisco. Later in 1983, the string orchestra version was made and first performed at Tully Hall in April the same year by Michael Thomas. Like many young composers, John Adams was not much conversant with the nature of musical tools of the times thus the choice he made for his music tools was not pleasing, and this brought much of insights and critics from those who received his piece of work. Having gained some experiences in the few American Minimalism seminal pieces of the 1970s, Adams combined rhythmic discourse and stripped-down harmonic styles in aspirations to make unformed yearnings, composed partly indebted works on the repetitive procedures of minimalism making long oscillating melodies that shimmered and rippled complex of patterns of partly agitated lake or pond. According to his post on the website, this rippling pond dried quickly and scattered during his first performance.

In as far as we consider how criticism pounded on Shaker Loops, this piece of work is one of the most performed pieces by Adams due to the limitless number of partisans who favor the septet version than uses individualism and clarity of the solo to this version. Others prefer the orchestral version due to the added power and density. According to, Shaker Loops the piece has been choreographed due to the beauty and power of this piece; Adams went back to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he tried new ideas while in the working laboratory. The concept of oscillating patterns and overall structure composition of the piece portrait an embrace, and several emotional ranges added more on the acoustic power and the sonic mass of the music. Harmonium

A work that composes orchestra and chorus considered a choral symphony and written in 1980-81 by John Adams for the first season of Davie Symphony Hall. This is the most remarkable work according to my stance, because of its two significant recordings done by the composer himself. John Adams in his earlier pieces never embraced designation; this made his earliest compositions challenging to pigeonhole; for instance, Shaker Loops previously suggested minimalism kinship but soon after the version of septet that included the colorful phrases and expressions promised something new to his fans. Although this work may be considered with clarity and safe to attach an ear to because of its beauty and uniqueness, a program book to the San Francisco Symphony highlights of the insights to the work stating that "while the harmonies for the most part move and change slowly, the surface of the music is a continuous rippling, and exhilarating surge in relentless crescendo, and-shades of Beethoven again-possessed of a powerfully determined sense of harmonic and rhetorical goal."

Originality and Power of "Nixon in China"

When the 1987 John Adams work on "Nixon in China" was premiered, a lot of suspicions and distain to work by the viewers not only because of its Cultural Revolution and Watergate being of recent events but also the naive and populistic nature that minimalism had attained. Nixon, a work of quite remarkable originality with a two-decade premier in Chicago, is unique unlike the Glass' works like "Satyagraha," which kept stricter on minimalism that emphasized pattern shifts within the repetitions. In Adams' work, the use of cells of arpeggios that effectively portrays the musical gestures in the Wagnerian orchestrations which took tremendous structure evolution, building a lot of dramatic release and tension that allowed progressively widening palette of popular and dynamic, world-music idioms and jazz. I have never seen a useful application of this style that builds power and beauty to any work of composers other than it has been used in "Nixon."

Adams' opera is unique due to its substantial saxophone utilization, uses electronic synthesizer, and the additional percussion. "Nixon" opera has thrived around the world despite the initial mix of reviews of this work. I agree with the remarkable critics that The Guardian has provided to the opera and that naming the work as "Genuine Contemporary Opera" it is entirely plausible because of the change received in the work's critical responses.

A summary of this work talks of how Nixon's Spirit of '76 aircraft lands on the Peking Airport, he is accompanied by his wife and Henry Kissinger. Chou En-lai (the Chinese premier) later meets them and the group moves towards Mao's study. Then after discussions, they head for a Toast at the Great Hall of the People, where Nixon apologizes for how he was wrong on opposing China. In his tour to the city, Pat Nixon is captivated by the school children; this makes him envision of the Summer Palace has a peaceful future. However, the presidential party moves to the Peking Opera for the Red Detachment of women's performance, where Nixon shows his concerns by rushing on stage to help a peasant girl who he thinks is being attacked....