John Adams
This is pure cinema, unpretentious, rough-hewn, mystical, conjured from the earth, offered up at the forest altar of whatever flesh-and-blood gods are still listening.
Last Friday night, conductor Andris Nelsons and the musicians came on stage together wearing red carnations as symbols of solidarity. The applause was immediate and fervent.
The Adams Family may be a low budget regional filmmaking collective, but it continues to raise the bar on horror art cinema.
Reviews of Hélène Grimaud’s latest homage to Clara Schumann and La Tempête investigates seeming stylistic overlaps in the music of J. S. Bach, Henryk Górecki, Jehan Alain, Knut Nystedt, and John Adams.
This recording presents one of the most lucid and well-programmed portraits of John Adams to emerge, well, in a long while.
Hellbender is not just a fabulous indie film about witches, it’s also an original coming-of-age horror movie.
BMOP’s performances of three John Adams chamber symphonies, all conducted by music director Gil Rose, offer welcome, distinctive takes on the triptych.
Peter Oundjian and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra deliver a great album, smartly programmed and played to the hilt. Leonard Bernstein’s live Mahler was often electrifying; this performance, even with some cracked notes and hairy transitions, certainly is.
It is, clearly, a crafty Beethoven remix and the ways John Adams assimilates the older composer’s language into his latest style are fascinating.
This weekend’s concert fires on all cylinders. Don’t miss it.
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