Doctor Atomic and His Gadget
Composer and conductor John Adams was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1947. He studied the clarinet with his father and began composing at the age of ten. Aer attending Harvard University, he moved in 1971 to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he now lives. Adams’s operatic works, Nixon in China, e Death of Klinghoffer, and Doctor Atomic, all created in collaboration with stage director Peter Sellars, draw their subjects from archetypal themes in contemporary history and are among the most performed operas of our time. Adams was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music for his 2002 work “On the Transmigration of Souls,” commissioned by the New York Philharmonic to commemorate the rst anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks. Adams has been awarded honorary degrees and proclamations by,among others, Cambridge University, Harvard University, Yale School of Music, Phi Beta Kappa, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, and the Juilliard School. Currently Creative Chair of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, he regularly guest conducts orchestras throughout the United States and Europe. Adams’s autobiography, Hallelujah Junction, was named one of the“Most Notable Books” of 2008 by the New York Times and was the winner of the 2009 Northern California Book Award for Creative Nonfiction.