John Adams led the LSO in the European premiere of his City Noir at London's Barbican Hall last week, to which the Times (UK) gives four stars and calls "brilliant." Adams and the LSO bring to Salle Pleyel in Paris to launch Domain privé John Adams, an 11-day celebration of the composer's music there and at Cité de la musique, with six concerts, three premieres, and a forum with the composer. The Vancouver Sun describes last weekend's Canadian premiere of Adams's Nixon in China as “brilliantly effective.”

John Adams led the LSO in the European premiere of his City Noir at London's Barbican Hall last night. The Evening Standard gives it four stars, calling the new piece "a dazzling showpiece." Adams's first opera, Nixon in China, receives its Canadian premiere at the Vancouver Opera tomorrow for the 2010 Cultural Olympiad. Next week, Long Beach Opera presents the first LA staging in two decades. Los Angeles Times' Mark Swed reflects on the opera's history, calling it a "classic" and "a marvelous, ever interesting" work.

John Adams and the London Symphony Orchestra gave the UK premiere of his Doctor Atomic Symphony at Barbican Hall Sunday; they perform the European premiere of his City Noir Thursday. The Times (UK) gives Sunday's "extraordinarily compelling" performance four stars, exclaiming that, with Doctor Atomic Symphony, Adams "has created a truly explosive 25-minute piece in which the listener is rocked by a sense of the compacted moral and physical turbulence of the original opera." The Evening Standard gives it four stars as well, calling it "Adams at his heart-on-sleeve best."

John Adams returns to the Barbican in London this weekend for John Adams Focus. He introduces a screening of the film Wonders Are Many: The Making of Doctor Atomic, followed by the UK premiere of Doctor Atomic Symphony, with the composer leading the London Symphony Orchestra. Next week, Adams will lead the LSO in the European premiere of City Noir, which, he writes in the Times, is "an imaginary film score, a musical study in cinematic colours and jazz-inflected energy."

The San Francisco Symphony has announced its 2010-11 season, which will feature the return of composer John Adams as a featured composer. Adams will conduct the SFS in multiple performances of El Niño starring Dawn Upshaw this December. Also part of the focus on Adams: an SFS performance of Harmonielehre, led by Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas, and an all-Adams chamber music concert featuring members of the orchestra.

The Metropolitan Opera has announced its 2010-11 season, which features the Met premiere of John Adams's Nixon in China. The composer makes his Met debut on the podium conducting the Met premiere of the opera. It also marks the Met directorial of Peter Sellars, who led the 1987 world premiere of Nixon in China at the Houston Grand Opera. James Maddalena returns as Nixon, the role he originated and sang on the Nonesuch recording.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic has announced its 2010-2011 concert season. John Adams, the orchestra's creative chair, will oversee its famed Green Umbrella new-music series, with music by Michael Gordon, George Crumb, and others, concluding with a concert led by Adams. His Slonimsky's Earbox will be featured on the LA Phil's European tour. Brad Mehldau will perform Highway Rider at Disney Hall with musicians from the album, including Joshua Redman.

The Barbican's John Adams Focus series begins with a New York Philharmonic performance of The Wound-Dresser on Thursday. In the coming months, Adams leads the LSO in the UK premiere of Doctor Atomic Symphony and City Noir; the St. Lawrence String Quartet performs his String Quartet; and a new production of I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky opens. The Toronto Symphony's 2010-11 season also includes an Adams-focused festival with Adams leading the Canadian premiere of City Noir. His Nixon in China will be performed in Vancouver and Los Angeles this March.

Anne Midgette, the classical music critic for the Washington Post, has already named Alarm Will Sound's a/rhythmia among the year's best albums, and, for WNYC's Soundcheck, included John Adams's Dharma at Big Sur among the decade's best. Now, on her Post blog, she says of Adams, "if there was a composer to whom the decade belonged, I'd say it was him." Audiophile Audition gives his latest, Doctor Atomic Symphony, four stars.

Two New York Times music critics have Nonesuch albums on their Top Ten lists: Rokia Traoré's Tchamantché and Oumou Sangare's Seya. The Washington Post has Alarm Will Sound's a/rhythmia in its Top Ten classical albums; the Denver Post has Richard Goode and John Adams. Two Boston Globe critics have Wilco (the album) on their lists, while others there add BlakRoc and Seya. MTV includes Wilco plus Amadou & Mariam's Welcome to Mali. PopMatters and American Songwriter cite Wilco as well, while the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle lists Allen Toussaint's The Bright Mississippi.

The Boston Herald's list of the Top Ten classical albums of the year is out, and four of the ten are from Nonesuch: Kronos Quartet's Floodplain, John Adams's Doctor Atomic Symphony, Alarm Will Sound's a/rhythmia, and Gidon Kremer and Kremerata Baltica's recording of Mozart's Complete Violin Concertos. The Herald had named The Low Anthem's Oh My God, Charlie Darwin and Wilco's Wilco (the album) among the year's best in pop/rock.

John Adams led the Orchestra of St. Luke's in a performance of El Niño at Carnegie Hall Sunday. The New York Times finds Adams's Nativity Oratorio to be "best suited to the business of telling the Nativity story" of the works typically heard during Advent and credits the conductor with drawing "a solid, passionate performance from the orchestra." Playbill spoke with Adams and New York City Ballet's Peter Martins about Martins's new piece set to Naive and Sentimental Music, which recently premiered at Lincoln Center.