John Adams: The Ultimate American Composer

It may seem somewhat contradictory after having spent a good deal of time pointing out the flaws of utilizing the term American composer to go ahead and label someone a composer. However, because of the nature and unique character of his music, John Adams must be seen as a truly American composer. His music is such that is able to transcend the national and ethnic boundaries of this hemisphere.

One needs to look at his music and very quickly realize that his aesthetic is one that is an accurate representation of the life and peoples of this continent. His opera-oratorio El Nino is a setting of the Christmas story, but the characters are Hispanics. In the Death of Klinghoffer, Adams tells the story of an American Jew who is murdered by Palestinian terrorists. Finally, the Pulitzer Prize winning composition entitled "On the Transmigration of Souls" is intended as a solemn memorial to the lives lost that day, of which were represented people from numerous ethnicities, including many countries in South America.

This designation of John Adams being an American Composer is not intended by any means to be a simple designation of his geographical location, or even that he has written music which tells the stories of the different nationalities on both American continents. Instead, it is meant to be a special designation, for in this music, people of the Americas, not just residents of the USA, can relate to his music.

Adams is a prolific reader, reading huge quantities of material daily. In addition to this, he has a career as a guest conductor traveling around the world (During the process of composing El Nino, Adams underwent the task of learning Spanish in order to successfully composed the work, a feat which very few other composers who reside within the USA could make the claim to having done.) When not travelling abroad, he composes in a cabin in seclusion on his Californian property.

His life story is one that points toward an approach that is more cosmopolitan than regional. He was born and educated on the east coast of the USA, but after having completed his training at Harvard, Adams headed west to California, and has remained a resident of that state since his move. Already apparent should be the dramatic change in the artistic atmosphere. Adams left the academic environment of the eastern universities and conservatories and settled in an area heavily influenced by hollywood and the pop environment.

Adams lives primarily on commissions, and has distinguished himself as being the only American composer able to not only receive frequent commissions from the New York Philharmonic and the London Symphony, but also holds a significant distinction as being one of the very few living composers to see many of his orchestral works enter into the mainstream concert repertoire.

Adams began his career under the auspices of minimalism, but has moved away from it. His compositions are very much pop oriented in that he is concerned with accessibility to the audience, while at the same time does remain experimental.

Now, in order to verify these statements above, over the next few weeks I will explore each of the three afforementioned Adams compositions that embodies the pan-American spirit. I will work chronologically, starting with the Death of Klinghoffer, and the move on to El Nino, before concluding this study with On the Transmigration of Souls.