Editing John Adams (composer) (section)

===1988 to ''Doctor Atomic''===
Adams wrote two orchestral pieces in 1988: ''Fearful Symmetries'', a 25-minute work in the same style as ''Nixon in China'', and ''[[The Wound-Dresser]]'', a setting of [[Walt Whitman]]'s 1865 poem of that title, written when Whitman was volunteering at a military hospital during the [[American Civil War]]. ''The Wound-Dresser'' is scored for baritone voice, two flutes (or two piccolos), two oboes, clarinet, bass clarinet, two bassoons, two horns, trumpet (or piccolo trumpet), timpani, synthesizer, and strings.

During this time, Adams established an international career as a conductor. From 1988 to 1990, he served as conductor and music advisor for the [[Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra]].{{sfn|Cahill|2001|loc="1. Life"}} He has also served as artistic director and conductor of the [[Ojai Music Festival|Ojai]] and [[Cabrillo Music Festival]]s in California.{{sfn|Cahill|2001|loc="1. Life"}} He has conducted orchestras around the world, including the [[New York Philharmonic]], the [[Chicago Symphony Orchestra|Chicago Symphony]], the [[Cleveland Orchestra]], the [[Los Angeles Philharmonic]], the [[London Symphony Orchestra]], and the [[Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra]],{{sfn|Cahill|2001|loc="1. Life"}} performing pieces by [[Claude Debussy|Debussy]], [[Aaron Copland|Copland]], [[Igor Stravinsky|Stravinsky]], [[Joseph Haydn|Haydn]], [[Steve Reich|Reich]], [[Frank Zappa|Zappa]], [[Richard Wagner|Wagner]], and himself.<ref>{{harvnb|Adams|2008|p=178}}</ref>

Adams completed his second opera, ''[[The Death of Klinghoffer]]'', in 1991, again working with Goodman and Sellars. It is based on the [[Achille Lauro hijacking|1985 hijacking of the Italian cruise ship ''Achille Lauro'']] by Palestinian terrorists and details the murder of passenger [[Leon Klinghoffer]], a retired, physically disabled Jewish American. The opera has generated controversy, including allegations that it is [[antisemitic]] and glorifies terrorism.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Cooper|first=Michael|date=October 20, 2014|title=Protests Greet Metropolitan Opera's Premiere of ''Klinghoffer''|work=[[The New York Times]]|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/21/arts/music/metropolitan-opera-forges-ahead-on-klinghoffer-in-spite-of-protests.html|access-date=October 15, 2019|archive-date=February 11, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200211234340/https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/21/arts/music/metropolitan-opera-forges-ahead-on-klinghoffer-in-spite-of-protests.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

Adams's next piece, ''[[Chamber Symphony (Adams)|Chamber Symphony]]'' (1992), is for a 15-member [[chamber orchestra]]. In three movements, the work is inspired by an unlikely combination of sources: [[Arnold Schoenberg]]'s [[Chamber Symphony No. 1|Chamber Symphony No. 1, Op. 9]] (which Adams was studying at the time) and the "hyperactive, insistently aggressive and acrobatic" music of the cartoons his young son was watching.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Adams|first=John|date=June 1994|title=Chamber Symphony|url=https://www.earbox.com/chamber-symphony/|access-date=June 7, 2020|website=Earbox|archive-date=June 7, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200607021545/https://www.earbox.com/chamber-symphony/|url-status=live}}</ref>

The next year, he wrote his [[Violin Concerto (Adams)|Violin Concerto]] for American violinist [[Jorja Fleezanis]]. Lasting a little more than half an hour, it is also in three movements: a "long extended rhapsody for the violin" is followed by a slow [[chaconne]] (titled "Body through which the dream flows", a phrase from a poem by [[Robert Hass]]), and then an energetic [[Toccata|toccare]].<ref>{{Cite web|last=Adams|first=John|title=Violin Concerto, Leila Josefowicz|url=https://www.earbox.com/john-adams-violin-concerto-leila-josefowicz-david-robertson-st-louis-symphony-orchestra/|access-date=July 14, 2020|website=Earbox|date=July 26, 2018|archive-date=July 14, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200714033647/https://www.earbox.com/john-adams-violin-concerto-leila-josefowicz-david-robertson-st-louis-symphony-orchestra/|url-status=live}}</ref> Adams received the [[Grawemeyer Award (Music Composition)|Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition]] for the concerto.<ref name="Grawemeyer">{{cite web|date=July 20, 1995|title=1995 – John Adams|url=http://grawemeyer.org/1995-john-adams/|access-date=July 13, 2020|website=Grawemeyer Awards|archive-date=July 14, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200714024903/http://grawemeyer.org/1995-john-adams/|url-status=live}}</ref>

In 1995, he completed ''[[I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky]]'', a stage piece with libretto by poet [[June Jordan]] and staging by Sellars. Inspired by musicals, Adams called the piece a "songplay in two acts".<ref>{{Cite web|last=Adams|first=John|title=I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky|url=https://www.earbox.com/i-was-looking-at-the-ceiling-and-then-i-saw-the-sky/|access-date=June 30, 2020|website=Earbox|date=September 23, 1995|archive-date=June 30, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200630201944/https://www.earbox.com/i-was-looking-at-the-ceiling-and-then-i-saw-the-sky/|url-status=live}}</ref> The main characters are seven young Americans from different social and ethnic backgrounds, all living in [[Los Angeles]], with stories that take place around the [[1994 Northridge earthquake]].

''[[Hallelujah Junction]]'' (1996) is a three-movement composition for two pianos that employs variations of a repeated two-note rhythm. The [[interval (music)|interval]]s between the notes remain the same for much of the piece. Adams used the same phrase for the title of his 2008 memoir.

Written to celebrate the millennium, ''[[El Niño (opera)|El Niño]]'' (2000) is an "[[oratorio]] about birth in general and about the [[Nativity of Jesus|Nativity]] in specific".<ref>{{harvnb|Adams|2008|p=240}}</ref> The piece incorporates a wide range of texts, including biblical texts as well as poems by Hispanic poets like [[Rosario Castellanos]], [[Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz]], [[Gabriela Mistral]], [[Vicente Huidobro]], and [[Rubén Darío]],

After the [[September 11, 2001 attacks|September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks]], the [[New York Philharmonic]] commissioned Adams to write a memorial piece for the victims. The result, ''[[On the Transmigration of Souls]]'', was premiered around the first anniversary of the attacks. ''On the Transmigration of Souls'' is for [[orchestra]], [[Choir|chorus]], and [[children's choir]], accompanied by taped readings of the names of the victims mixed with the sounds of the city.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Adams|first=John|title=On the Transmigration of Souls|url=https://www.earbox.com/on-the-transmigration-of-souls/|access-date=July 9, 2020|website=Earbox|date=September 23, 2002|archive-date=July 19, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200719000620/https://www.earbox.com/on-the-transmigration-of-souls/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Huizenga|first=Tom|date=September 10, 2011|title=John Adams' Memory Space: 'On The Transmigration Of Souls'|url=https://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2011/09/10/140341459/john-adams-memory-space-on-the-transmigration-of-souls|access-date=October 15, 2019|publisher=NPR|archive-date=September 13, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200913123913/https://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2011/09/10/140341459/john-adams-memory-space-on-the-transmigration-of-souls|url-status=live}}</ref> It won the 2003 [[Pulitzer Prize for Music]]<ref name="pulitzer">{{cite web|title=Prize winners: Music|url=https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-category/225|access-date=September 22, 2014|publisher=[[Pulitzer.org]]|archive-date=March 8, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308064037/https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-category/225|url-status=live}}</ref> and the 2005 [[Grammy Award]] for [[Best Contemporary Composition]].

Commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony,<ref>{{Cite web|last=Adams|first=John|author-link=John Adams (composer)|year=2003|title=My Father Knew Charles Ives|url=http://www.boosey.com/cr/music/John-Adams-My-Father-Knew-Charles-Ives/26340|access-date=July 31, 2016|website=[[Boosey & Hawkes]]|archive-date=August 27, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160827210657/http://www.boosey.com/cr/music/John-Adams-My-Father-Knew-Charles-Ives/26340|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Kosman|first=Joshua|date=May 2, 2003|title=Symphony premieres Adams' splendid 'Ives' / A funny and touching musical memoir|url=http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Symphony-premieres-Adams-splendid-Ives-A-2619047.php|access-date=July 31, 2016|work=[[San Francisco Chronicle]]}}</ref> Adams's orchestral piece ''[[My Father Knew Charles Ives]]'' (2003) has three movements: "Concord", "The Lake", and "The Mountain". Though his father did not actually know American composer [[Charles Ives]], Adams saw many similarities between the two men's lives and between their lives and his own, including their love of small-town New England life and their unfulfilled musical dreams.
[[File:JROppenheimer-LosAlamos.jpg|thumb|upright|Adams' third opera, ''[[Doctor Atomic]]'', is about [[J. Robert Oppenheimer]] (shown above, in 1944) and the development of the atomic bomb in 1945.]]

Written for the [[Los Angeles Philharmonic]] to celebrate the opening of [[Walt Disney Concert Hall|Disney Hall]] in 2003, ''[[The Dharma at Big Sur]]'' (2003) is a two-movement work for solo electric six-string violin and orchestra. Adams wrote that with ''Dharma'', he "wanted to compose a piece that embodied the feeling of being on the West Coast – literally standing on a precipice overlooking the geographic shelf with the ocean extending far out to the horizon".<ref>{{harvnb|Adams|2008|pp=233–234}}</ref> Inspired by the music of [[Lou Harrison]],<ref>{{harvnb|Adams|2008|pp=234–235}}</ref> the piece calls for some instruments (harp, piano, samplers) to use [[just intonation]], a [[tuning system]] in which intervals sound pure, rather than [[equal temperament]], the common Western tuning system in which all intervals except the octave are impure.

Adams's third opera, ''[[Doctor Atomic]]'' (2005), is about physicist [[J. Robert Oppenheimer]], the [[Manhattan Project]], and the creation and testing of the first atomic bomb. The work premiered at the San Francisco Opera in October 2005.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Martinez |first=Andrew |date=2019 |title=Dr. Atomic by John Adams and Peter Sellars (review) |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/746770 |journal=Theatre Journal |volume=71 |issue=4 |pages=495–496 |doi=10.1353/tj.2019.0098 |s2cid=214198177 |issn=1086-332X|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Its libretto, by Sellars, draws on original source material, including personal memoirs, recorded interviews, technical manuals of nuclear physics, declassified government documents, and the poetry of the ''[[Bhagavad Gita]]'', [[John Donne]], [[Charles Baudelaire]], and [[Muriel Rukeyser]]. It takes place in June and July 1945, mainly over the last few hours before the first atomic bomb explodes at the test site in New Mexico. Characters include Oppenheimer and his wife [[Kitty Oppenheimer|Kitty]], [[Edward Teller]], General [[Leslie Groves]], and [[Robert R. Wilson|Robert Wilson]]. Two years later, Adams extracted music from the opera to create the ''[[Doctor Atomic#Doctor Atomic Symphony|Doctor Atomic Symphony]]''.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Cooper|first=Michael|date=July 6, 2018|title=Bringing ''Doctor Atomic'' to the Birthplace of the Bomb|work=[[The New York Times]]|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/06/arts/music/dr-atomic-santa-fe-john-adams-peter-sellars.html|access-date=October 15, 2019}}</ref>

In 2018, [[Santa Fe Opera|The Santa Fe Opera]] performed ''Doctor Atomic'' in its summer season. The production took place in Santa Fe, 33 miles away from the [[Project Y|Los Alamos Laboratory]], the Manhattan Project's research and development facility. This proximity forged a deeper connection between the production and the people of Los Alamos, fostering a new relationship with the pueblo communities. According to Andrew Martinez, this association "became an opportunity to confront the histories and present-day experiences of pain and suffering that New Mexico citizens have endured since that rainy summer night in July 1945 when the first atomic bomb was detonated".<ref name=":0" /> The production also featured a 2,400-pound silver orb hanging from the ceiling, representing the bomb. This single set piece stood on an otherwise empty stage, set against the backdrop of the [[Sangre de Cristo Mountains]].<ref name=":0" />