EMI Classics John Adams. American Classic (DVD)

John Adams is America’s most frequently performed living composer. He has managed the considerable feat of writing accessible music that still surprises and challenges its listeners. In the words of the New Yorker, he is “the man who takes the agony out of modern music". Though he is not the only composer who has combined a classical education with a pop sensibility, he is the one who has made the synthesis stick. Richly harmonic, his music embraces just about every style, from Minimalism to Mahler, rock to jazz, hymns to Liberace, but always winds up sounding like Adams. Adams is also one of music’s most controversial figures - thanks to opera. Nixon in China started a whole new genre in modern opera. The Death of Klinghoffer dealt with the ...