This Cultural Life

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In-depth conversations with some of the world's leading artists and creatives.

In-depth conversations with some of the world's leading artists and creatives across theatre, visual arts, music, dance, film and more. Hosted by John Wilson.

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This Cultural Life: John Adams

John Adams

BBC Radio 4 - This Cultural Life, John Adams

American composer John Adams reveals his influences and formative cultural experiences.

American composer John Adams talks to John Wilson about his influences and formative cultural experiences.

The work of composer and conductor John Adams blends the rhythmic vitality of Minimalism with late-Romantic orchestral harmonies. He emerged alongside Philip Glass, Steve Reich and other musical minimalists in the early 1970s, and his reputation grew with symphonic work and operas that tackle recent history including Nixon In China, the Death Of Klinghoffer and Dr Atomic. He is the winner of five Grammy Awards and the Pulitzer Prize for Music, and is one of America’s greatest and most performed living composers. 

Born and raised in New England, Adams learned the clarinet from his father and played in marching bands and community orchestras during his formative years. He began composing at the age of ten and heard his first orchestral pieces performed while still a teenager. He tells John Wilson about the huge influence the composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein and his televised Young People's Concerts had on him. He also reveals how jazz band leader and composer Duke Ellington influenced how he writes for the orchestra, and how Charles Dickens inspired him to embrace accessibly in his compositions.

Producer: Edwina Pitman

Extract from Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concert, What Does Music Mean? CBS, 18 January 1958, © The Leonard Bernstein Office

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