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JOHN ADAMS
OHV 126 a-d
Major Figures in American Music: John Adams
Interviewed by Vincent Plush
San Francisco, California
May 23, 1983
Cassette Side a
Transcript pp. 1-17
Childhood in Vermont--clarinet study--interest in Ives--Mahler--Steve Reich--the tragic mode--clarinet--Walter Piston--jazz--Harvard--Tison Street--David Del Tredici--student activism--Vietnam threat--early pieces--influence of Bernstein--Copland.
Cassette Side b
Transcript pp. 17-37
Leon Kirchner--conducting--American Standard--religion--drugs--John Cage--Electric Wake--Roger Sessions--Montezuma--Pierre Boulez--Stravinsky--Earl Kim--Piano Quintet--high school conducting experience at Dartmouth--tape recorder--Brandeis studio--Heavy Metal--Stockhausen--Hockey Seen--Available Light--decision to leave East for San Francisco.
Cassette Side c
Transcript pp. 38-57
Teaching at San Francisco Conservatory--Tape Music Center--New Music Ensemble--Bob Moran--Cornelius Cardew--Mills, Berkeley, Stanford--Bicentennial Festival--Charlemagne Palestine--Shaker Loops--version for string orchestra--Phrygian Gates--Ktaadn--The China Gates--Grounding--trip to Florence--Common Tones in Simple Time--Harmonium--Grand Pianola Music--New and Unusual Music Series of San Francisco Symphony--Edo de Waart.
Cassette Side d
Transcript pp. 57-73
Grand Pianola Music--composer’s relationship to public--Eranos for film about Jung--Available Light (Light over Water)--Lucinda Childs--residency with San Francisco Symphony--reviewing unsolicited scores--future plans--opera--Philip Glass--Laurie Anderson--Boulez--division between experimental tradition and “traditional tradition”--relationship to Europe--composer ensembles.
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OHV 126 e-h
Major Figures in American Music: John Adams
Interviewed by Vivian Perlis
New York City
May 3, 1997
Cassette Side e
Transcrip pp. 1-16
1997 Composer of the Week with the New York Philharmonic--attitudes towards contemporary music: conductors, audiences and players --orchestras run as corporations--quality of orchestral players--Slonimsky’s Earbox--Violin Concerto with Gidon Kremer--violin playing styles--parallels to Ives and his father--composer role models--breaking away from “minimalist” label--misunderstood composers--John Cage’s influence--accepting the public’s limited viewpoint.
Cassette Side f
Transcrip pp. 17-32
Time it takes to accurately delineate a stylistic period--who will be remembered as a significant composer--balancing artistic and popular reasons for composing--Schoenberg as negative model passed on by Kirchner--Ellington and Stravinsky as positive models--escape to California--60s influence--Lou Harrison and Pacific Rim influences on West Coast composers--uniqueness of American music--New York as cultural center--time spent conducting in Europe--quality of radio programming as a measure of musical sophistication--”Bang On A Can” as musical marketing--need for self-advertisement--delay in public recognition--name launched by Nixon in China--change to full-time composer and financial success--need to conduct--musical children--great composers writing for children--operas, a major part of life--background reading for Nixon and Klinghoffer.
Cassette Side g
Transcrip pp. 33-34
[starts out with duplicate material from SIDE F, as dub of DAT]
Continued discussion of Nixon and Klinghoffer.
Cassette Side h
Transcrip pp. 35-41
Nixon and Klinghoffer as prototypes for operas dealing with contemporary events--criticism of Klinghoffer--performances picketed and canceled--Ceiling/Sky--reception damaged by inability to label medium--revisions of pieces--need for music to also entertain--musical influences of parents--future interview.
OHV 126 i-k
Major Figures in American Music: John Adams
Interviewed by Ingram Marshall
Sierra Nevada Mountains, California
August 12, 1999
Cassette Side i
Transcrip pp. 1-17
Conducting--studying Ives Fourth Symphony--Nancarrow and his player piano experiments--performing the Mikhashoff transcriptions of Nancarrow--meaning of Ives Fourth--Cage--effect of conducting on Adams’ composing--influence of Nancarrow--the vernacular in classical music--humor in music--Violin Concerto--using computers and technology as a compositional tool--writing Harmonielehre.
Cassette side j
Transcrip pp. 17-33
More on Harmonielehre--optimism in music--literature and music--composing long pieces--The Wound-Dresser--Whitman’s Drum Taps--Fearful Symmetries--conducting career--El Dorado and its relationship to landscape--revising past compositions--Adams’s Chamber Symphony and Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony--Hoodoo Zephyr--using MIDI technology--Common Tones in Simple Time.
Cassette side k
Transcrip pp. 33-44
Hoodoo Zephyr cont’d--working with young performers--relationship with Nonesuch--writing Wave-Maker for Kronos--narrative in Adam’s pieces--Naive and Sentimental Music--fascination with German culture and language.
Additional material about this interviewee may be available. For more information on the contents of the collection, email oham@yale.edu.