Page 70 - GTMF 2024 Season Program

July 5 & 6 ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

John Adams Adams has received numerous GRAMMY® awards,

Composer many of them for his over 30 releases on
Nonesuch Records.

Composer, conductor and creative thinker—John Born and raised in New England, Adams learned
Adams occupies a unique position in the world of the clarinet from his father and played in marching
music. His works stand out among contemporary bands and community orchestras during his
classical compositions for their depth of expression, formative years. He began composing at age 10
brilliance of sound and the profoundly humanist and his first orchestral pieces were performed
nature of their themes. Works spanning more than while just a teenager. Adams has received honorary
three decades are among the most performed of all doctorates from Yale, Harvard, Northwestern,
contemporary classical music, among them Nixon Cambridge and The Juilliard School. A provocative
in China, Harmonielehre, Doctor Atomic, Shaker writer, he authored the highly acclaimed autobiography
Loops, El Niño, Short Ride in a Fast Machine and Hallelujah Junction and is a frequent contributor to
The Dharma at Big Sur. The New York Times Book Review.
His stage works, many in collaboration with director Since 2009, Adams has been Creative Chair of the
Peter Sellars, have transformed the genre of Los Angeles Philharmonic.
contemporary music theater. Of Adams’ best-known www.earbox.com
opera, the New Yorker magazine wrote “Not since
Porgy and Bess has an American opera won such
universal acclaim as Nixon in China.” A 2023 The
New York Times Arts & Leisure cover story called
Adams “arguably our greatest living composer.”

68 Grand Teton Music Festival Season 63