EMUSIC-L Digest Volume 58, Issue 12 This issue's topics: john adams keyboard article (4 messages) Your EMUSIC-L Digest moderator is Joe McMahon . You may subscribe to EMUSIC-L by sending mail to listserv@american.edu with the line "SUB EMUSIC-L your name" as the text. The EMUSIC-L archive is a service of SunSite (sunsite.unc.edu) at the University of North Carolina. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1993 08:11:05 EST From: Steven Cantor Subject: john adams keyboard article so, after reading a reference to a john adams article in the 'latest' issue of keyboard magazine, i ran-not-walked to my newsstand, and found the december issue, with nary a reference to mr. adams to be found, as far as i could see. could we have more info on this please? if it is from the november issue, is there any way it could be reproduced on this list? thanks in advance, s. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steven Cantor SLC@HARVARDA.HARVARD.EDU ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1993 15:10:36 -0500 From: Mark G Simon Subject: Re: john adams keyboard article > so, after reading a reference to a john adams article in the 'latest' issue > of keyboard magazine, i ran-not-walked to my newsstand, and found the december > issue, with nary a reference to mr. adams to be found, as far as i could see. > could we have more info on this please? if it is from the november issue, > is there any way it could be reproduced on this list? > thanks in advance, > s. Now I was just reading that Adams article a couple of days ago and I could swear up and down it was in the December issue. You might look back as far as the October issue though. Whatever issue it was in, it came towards the back. Did you look carefully through the whole magazine? I just bought the new John Adams record (Hoodoo zephyr). So far I've only had a chance to listen to the first 2 tracks, but I'm pretty much favorably impressed on first hearing. Adams has more ideas per minute than a lot of electronic music composers. As to be expected, there's a lot of short repeating rhythmic patterns, but they always change before they have a chance to get old. The experience is kind of like sitting in a car watching the scenery go by, especially the kind of flat desert scenery, such as that depicted in the record's insert. Foreground objects go whizzing by while the background seems stationary. "Disappointment Lake" sounds more like new-age atmospherics than what I'm used to hearing from him. There's a meandering 'guitar' solo over some ambient whooshings. Then there's a rather ugly middle section which brings in more rhythmic patterns. A honky-tonk piano can be heard in the distance (interesting touch). Those are my random, and not necessarily profound thoughts while giving a first hearing to John Adams. --Mark Simon mgs2@cornell.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Nov 1993 12:42:24 MET From: Schuster Richard Subject: Re: john adams keyboard article who is jon adams? i have never before heard that name. so please tell me about him! ********************************************************** *Richard Schuster * *University of Innsbruck, Austria * * * *network adress: * *schuste2@sowi-nov.uibk.ac.at * ********************************************************** ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Nov 1993 08:46:23 -0500 From: Mark G Simon Subject: Re: john adams keyboard article > who is john adams? John Adams (b. 1947) is a minimalist composer from California. Currently he is most famous for his 2 operas "Nixon in China", about Richard Nixon's 1971 visit to China, and "The Death of Klinghoffer" about the Achille Lauro incident. He has also written many orchestral works such as "Harmonielehre" (title taken from Schoenberg's theory textbook, but otherwise unrelated to Schoenberg or music theory), "The Chairman Dances" (taken from Nixon in China) and "The Wound Dresser" (setting of a Walt Whitman poem about working in a hospital during the American Civil War). The latter was widely acclaimed, though I find it one of his least interesting pieces. "A short ride in a fast machine" has been widely played by American orchestras, mainly because it's short and flashy. "Hoodoo Zephyr" is Adams' first major electronic work, although there was also an amusing piece called "Christian Zeal and... [I forget the rest of the title]" Which featured an instrumental ensemble playing Arthur Sullivan's hymn "Onward Christian Soldiers" at a very *very* sloooooow tempo while a tape recording plays a fractured sermon by an evangelist preacher (the phrase "withered hand" keeps coming back). His works are all recorded on Elektra/Nonesuch records, and are widely available in the US. --Mark Simon mgs2@cornell.edu ------------------------------ End of the EMUSIC-L Digest ******************************