John Coolidge Adams is an American composer and conductor whose music is rooted in minimalism. Among the most regularly performed composers of contemporary classical music, he is particularly noted for his operas, which are often centered around recent historical events. Apart from opera, his oeuvre includes orchestral, concertante, vocal, choral, chamber, electroacoustic and piano music.
The Los Angeles Philharmonic, officially known in shorthand as LA Phil, is an American orchestra based in Los Angeles, California. It has a regular season of concerts from October through June at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and a summer season at the Hollywood Bowl from July through September. Gustavo Dudamel is the current music director, Esa-Pekka Salonen is conductor laureate, Zubin Mehta is conductor emeritus, and Susanna Mälkki is principal guest conductor. John Adams is the orchestra's current composer-in-residence.
I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky is a 1995 "song play" with music composed by John Adams and a libretto by June Jordan.
Gustavo Adolfo Dudamel Ramírez is a Venezuelan conductor and violinist. He is currently music director of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Paris Opera. He is scheduled to become music director of the New York Philharmonic in 2026.
Yuja Wang is a Chinese pianist. Born in Beijing, she began learning piano there at age six, and went on to study at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.
City Noir is a symphonic work by the composer John Adams. A primary inspiration for the piece is the work of historian Kevin Starr on urban California in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The composer characterizes the work as "jazz-inflected symphonic music", citing the French composer Darius Milhaud as originator of this trend. It has a duration of 35 minutes, features solos for alto saxophone, trumpet, trombone, horn, viola, and double bass, and has three movements:
Ted Hearne is an American composer, singer and conductor. He currently lives in Los Angeles, California.
Soundings is a single-movement orchestral composition by the American composer John Williams. It was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic for the inaugural season of the Walt Disney Concert Hall. It was first performed on October 25, 2003, by the Los Angeles Philharmonic under the direction of Williams.
Dialogues II is a composition for piano and chamber orchestra by the American composer Elliott Carter. It was composed in celebration of the conductor Daniel Barenboim's 70th birthday. The work was first performed at La Scala, Milan on October 25, 2012, by Barenboim on the piano and the Orchestra of La Scala under the conductor Gustavo Dudamel. Composed at the age of 103, Dialogues II was one of Carter's last completed orchestral compositions before his death in November 2012. The piece is a follow-up to the composer's 2003 Dialogues, which was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Music.
Karawane is a composition for chorus and orchestra by the Finnish composer Esa-Pekka Salonen. The work was jointly commissioned by the Tonhalle Orchester Zürich, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic with support from the philanthropist Marie-Josée Kravis, the Bamberg Symphony, and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. It was first performed by the Tonhalle Orchester Zürich and the Zürcher Sing-Akademie conducted by Lionel Bringuier in the Tonhalle, Zürich, on September 10, 2014. The piece is set to the eponymous poem by the German author and Dadaist Hugo Ball.
The Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 28, is the first piano concerto by the Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera. The work was commissioned by the Koussevitzky Foundation and was completed in 1961. It was first performed by the pianist João Carlos Martins and the National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Howard Mitchell in Washington, D.C., on April 22, 1961. The concerto was Ginastera's first composition for piano since his Piano Sonata No. 1, Op. 22, written in 1952. It is dedicated to the memory of Serge and Natalie Koussevitzky.
La Commedia is an opera in five parts composed by Louis Andriessen. A retelling of Dante's Divine Comedy, the multi-language libretto was constructed by Andriessen using extracts from Dante's poem as well as several other sources including the Old Testament and the poetry of Joost van den Vondel. Andriessen describes the work as a "film opera" and collaborated closely with film director Hal Hartley in its development. La Commedia premiered on 12 June 2008 at the Koninklijk Theater Carré in Amsterdam.
The Source is an oratorio by American composer Ted Hearne, with libretto by Mark Doten. The work concerns the WikiLeaks disclosures of United States Army soldier Chelsea Manning.
Prism is a 2018 opera by Ellen Reid that explores the post-traumatic stress experience after sexual assault. Reid received the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Music for her work on the opera.
Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes? is a piano concerto by the American composer John Adams. Its title is taken from a saying attributed to Martin Luther. The work was premiered on March 7, 2019 by Yuja Wang and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel. A recording, made by Wang, Dudamel, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic in November 2019, was released digitally by Deutsche Grammophon on April 17, 2020. The piece is Adams' third piano concerto, after Eros Piano (1989) and Century Rolls (1997).
Zipangu is a 1980 work for string orchestra by Canadian composer Claude Vivier. Inspired by traditional kabuki theatre, it is considered by many to be the composer's most aggressive and "unforgiving" piece, as it features a plethora of extended techniques for strings and denser harmonic content atop a complex melody, similar to the string compositions of Krzysztof Penderecki. A typical performance lasts around sixteen minutes.
Antony and Cleopatra is an opera by American composer John Adams, premiered at the San Francisco Opera in September 2022. An adaptation of William Shakespeare's play Antony and Cleopatra, the libretto was written by John Adams with consultation by Elkhanah Pulitzer and Lucia Scheckner with text from Shakespeare's play, as well as supplementary passages from Plutarch, Virgil, and other classical texts. It is Adams' sixth opera and his first without collaboration with Peter Sellars. Performances are planned in Barcelona and the New York Metropolitan Opera.
Kauyumari is an orchestral composition written in 2021 by the Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz. The work was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which first performed the piece under the conductor Gustavo Dudamel at the Walt Disney Concert Hall on October 9, 2021.
Clara is an orchestral composition written in 2021 by the Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz. The work was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, which first performed the piece under the conductor Gustavo Dudamel at Alice Tully Hall on March 9, 2022.
Altar de Cuerda is a violin concerto written between September and December 2021 by the Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz. The work was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic for the violinist María Dueñas, to whom the piece is dedicated. Its world premiere was given by María Dueñas and the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Gustavo Dudamel at the Walt Disney Concert Hall on May 14, 2022. Altar de Cuerda is the seventh composition in Ortiz's Altares series, following Altar de Neón (1995), Altar de Muertos (1997), Altar de Piedra (2002), Altar de Fuego (2010), Altar de Luz (2013), and Altar de Viento (2015).
