Composer John Adams Dishes On Pop Culture
Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2009/05/14/
"The great bifurcation in music is between pop and classical," says composer John Adams. He discusses the challenge of creating classical music in a nation dominated by pop culture and "lingering anti-intellectualism."
-----
One of America's most performed and admired composers, John Adams (Nixon in China, Doctor Atomic) helped shape the landscape of contemporary classical music.
His new memoir reveals the inner workings of his creative process and illuminates the recent history of music-making. - Los Angeles Public Library
John Adams is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer with strong roots in minimalism. His best-known works include Harmonielehre (1985), On the Transmigration of Souls (2002), a choral piece commemorating the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks (for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2003), and Shaker Loops, a minimalist four-movement work for strings. His well-known operas include Nixon in China (1987), which recounts Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to China, and Doctor Atomic (2005), which covers Robert Oppenheimer, the Manhattan Project, and the building of the first atomic bomb.
"The great bifurcation in music is between pop and classical," says composer John Adams. He discusses the challenge of creating classical music in a nation dominated by pop culture and "lingering anti-intellectualism."
-----
One of America's most performed and admired composers, John Adams (Nixon in China, Doctor Atomic) helped shape the landscape of contemporary classical music.
His new memoir reveals the inner workings of his creative process and illuminates the recent history of music-making. - Los Angeles Public Library
John Adams is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer with strong roots in minimalism. His best-known works include Harmonielehre (1985), On the Transmigration of Souls (2002), a choral piece commemorating the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks (for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2003), and Shaker Loops, a minimalist four-movement work for strings. His well-known operas include Nixon in China (1987), which recounts Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to China, and Doctor Atomic (2005), which covers Robert Oppenheimer, the Manhattan Project, and the building of the first atomic bomb.
- Michael Vincent
Labels: Contemporary
posted by Crystal Chan at
12:00 PM
1 Comments:
I think there's nothing mysterious about the lack of interest in classical music in America. For many decades melody and beauty in serious music was forbidden by the musical elites - and to some extent it's still the case. So in the modern concert hall we have so many programs where an ugly modern piece of music is placed in the middle of a Rossini overture and a Tchaikovsky symphony to get the public to swallow it. Gee, guess what - they're not swallowing it. They're putting up with it so they can move on and enjoy the Tchaikovsky. The public isn't anti-intellectual; they are anti-ugly.
By
mrpaul, At
July 18, 2010 at 9:50 PM
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home