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![John Adams: Hallelujah Junction [book]](http://www.nonesuch.com/sites/nonesuch/files/imagecache/section-artists-latestrelease/media/images/adams-hallelujah-junction-BOOK-338-300.jpg "John Adams: Hallelujah Junction [book]")
Tuesday, January 6, 2009|0 CommentsJohn Adams Reads from "Hallelujah Junction" on NPR's "Book Tour"
John Adams's memoir Hallelujah Junction was featured on 2008's final episode of NPR.org's Book Tour, which broadcast a reading from the book the composer gave in November. The show's host calls Adams "one of America's leading avant-garde composers, and as he proves in this compelling memoir, possibly one of the loveliest human beings you're likely to encounter between the covers of a book." She describes his compositions as "erudite, philosophical, but spun through with the play and polish of popular culture."
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Monday, January 5, 2009Nonesuch Artists Continue to Draw Year-End Accolades
Since the last Nonesuch Journal entry of 2008, which laid out scores of year-end best-of lists featuring Nonesuch albums and artists, still more critical praise has come in placing this music among the year's best.
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Wednesday, December 24, 2008Nonesuch Albums Abound in Year-End Best Lists
While 2008 may go down as one of the more turbulent years in recent (or distant) memory, or, more optimistically, a time of change, there is much to celebrate in the year in music. Nonesuch artists across all genres have contributed to that and, accordingly, have made their way onto many critics' lists of the year's best. For the final Nonesuch Journal article of the year, we offer an overview of just some of that year-end critical praise.
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Tuesday, December 16, 2008PBS to Air "Wonders Are Many," on the Making of John Adams's "Doctor Atomic"
Beginning tonight, the PBS series Independent Lens will broadcast Wonders Are Many, the 2007 documentary film that captures the making of John Adams's 2004-05 opera, Doctor Atomic. The film goes behind the scenes to examine both the creation of this monumental work, leading to its world premiere at the San Francisco Opera House, and the working relationship between the longtime collaborators Adams and Sellars.
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![John Adams: A Flowering Tree [cover]](http://www.nonesuch.com/sites/nonesuch/files/imagecache/section-artists-latestrelease/media/images/adams-a-flowering-tree.jpg "John Adams: A Flowering Tree [cover]")
Monday, December 1, 2008NPR Names Adams, Kronos Albums Among Year's Best; Audiophile Audition Gives Adams Five Stars
John Adams's A Flowering Tree and Kronos Quartet's The Cusp of Magic have been named among NPR's Top 10 classical CDs of 2008, the latter a seamless blend of Eastern and Western influences, the former demonstrating the power of Adams's "imaginative musical language." Audiophile Audition gives A Flowering Tree five stars and exclaims: "John Adams has produced a masterwork." With this "shimmering soundscape," Adams has written "some of the most purely gorgeous music of recent years," all captured on this "beautifully recorded" album. "Most strongly recommended!"
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Wednesday, November 26, 2008LA Weekly: John Adams's "Intense, Immensely Charming and Revealing" Memoir Transcends Genre
Even with all the critical acclaim and analysis John Adams and his work have received over the years, writes LA Weekly in recommending the composer's new memoir, "if you know Adams’ music—really know it—it may not surprise you to discover that everything written up to now is puny, indeed, besides the guy, and what he has to say about himself." In the book, Adams shows "what it takes to compose great music, serious music that can reach out and touch people importantly" while transcending other memoirs with "this intense, immensely charming and revealing work."
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Monday, November 17, 2008
Boston Globe: John Adams "Hallelujah Junction" Offers Guide to Artistic Success with Integrity
The Met premiere production of John Adams's opera Doctor Atomic concluded last Thursday; this weekend, the Atlanta Symphony will give a staged production of the piece. Tonight, the composer is at Harvard to lead a performance of The Wound-Dresser, followed by a discussion. The Boston Globe talks with the composer about this "particularly rich time" in his life, as "one of America's busiest and most original composers" and features a review of Adams's memoir, Hallelujah Junction, that concludes: "[T]his is a book that any aspiring artist, in any medium, should read as a kind of how-to guide to achieving artistic success without losing integrity, something that seems to many young artists today nearly impossible. In fact, it is a book for anyone who wants to create something—including a self."
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Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Independent (UK): John Adams's "Engaging" Memoir Shows Composer's "Rare Precision"
John Adams's memoir, Hallelujah Junction, is now available in the UK. The Independent calls it "engaging" and says that like Adams's musical work of the same name, the book "radiates a calm, Californian confidence, letting its ideas unfold at a gentle pace." The parallels continue: "Adams's unique touch finds its literary analogue in a style of rare precision." The composer "here emerges as a storyteller."
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Friday, November 7, 2008
John Adams's "Doctor Atomic" Broadcast Worldwide from the Met
Following its Met premiere earlier this month, John Adams's 2005 opera Doctor Atomic was described as the composer's "most complex and masterly music" by the New York Times and "hauntingly powerful, deeply humane and eloquent" by the Boston Globe. This Saturday's matinee will be broadcast live in movie theaters around the world through The Met: Live in HD, which reaches close to 800 screens. Met General Manager Peter Gelb tells the Boston Herald: "I was determined to bring [Adams] to the company. Taking advantage of that with new media just adds to the experience."
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Thursday, October 30, 2008
Seattle Times: John Adams's New Memoir Is "As Lively as His Music"
The Seattle Times calls John Adams's new memoir, Hallelujah Junction, "as lively as his music," concluding: "[I]t's the range of Adams's musical appetites and intellectual hunger that leaves the strongest impression. This is a man who swallows whole new worlds with every fresh project he takes on—and makes his discoveries new for the rest of us."