John Adams led the Los Angeles Philharmonic in two performances, the orchestra's first, of his most recent opera, 2006's A Flowering Tree, at LA's Walt Disney Hall this past weekend. The Los Angeles Times says A Flowering Tree "is a miracle opera based upon an ancient folk tale from India. Magic pervades the work’s atmosphere, and a blissfully beautiful two-hour score enchants from first bar to last ... The sounds are magical." In the LA performances, "the singing was exceptional" and the Los Angeles Master Chorale "nailed everything."

John Adams is in Los Angeles this week to conduct a series of concerts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Walt Disney Concert Hall. On tap are two performances, the orchestra's first, of Adams's latest opera, A Flowering Tree, with its original cast of singers, this Friday and Sunday, plus a concert Tuesday, pairing his Son of Chamber Symphony with works by two young composer/performers. The LAist chooses the performances for its Classical Pick of the Week.

John Adams has been honored with the 2009 National Endowment for the Arts Opera Honors. "This award represents the greatest honor our nation bestows in opera, and recognizes individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to opera in the United States and have become cultural treasures of the nation," says the NEA. Adams's first opera, Nixon in China, will receive its Canadian premiere with the Vancouver Opera next March for the Cultural Olympiad 2010. Also included in the Olympic Games' arts celebration are performances by Kronos Quartet and by Laurie Anderson.

John Adams's 2008 String Quartet, only his second piece for the medium after 1994's John's Book of Alleged Dances, "is a stunner," says the San Jose Mercury News, following the West Coast premiere by the St. Lawrence String Quartet at Stanford last Sunday. "[T]he piece emerged as one of his most brilliant and inventive masterworks," asserts the Mercury News, and "boasts all the attributes audiences have come to associate with Adams' best music ... [T]his is Adams at his most gripping."

Gerald Finley, the star of John Adams's opera Doctor Atomic, is the subject of a feature profile in the Globe and Mail, which examines Finley's work with "opera's great chronicler of modern history," particularly in a role that "sometimes feels like the nightly equivalent of a triathlon." Violinist Leila Josefowicz tells the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review about performing Adams's The Dharma at Big Sur, which she will do again this weekend, with the composer conducting the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. The piece "takes you to a different place," she says, "with total strength vs. vulnerability at the same time."

John Adams's two most recent operas were performed in opposite hemispheres this past weekend: A Flowering Tree (2006), in its Australian premiere at the Perth International Arts Festival Friday and Saturday, and Doctoc Atomic (2005) in English National Opera's continuing London production. Western Australia Today describes the former's score as "complex, occasionally challenging and often beautiful," eliciting an enthusiastic response from the audience and multiple curtain calls. The Australian suggests, in light of the festival's success, "Adams might have come away reassured that appetites for high-quality artistry can survive, even thrive, in a recession."

After giving John Adams's Doctor Atomic its UK premiere last Wednesday, English National Opera continues performances of the opera this week. "If a work forces you, simultaneously and uncomfortably, to clench your limbs and hold your breath," says The Observer, "you have to take notice." A highlight of "Adams's meditative, richly faceted score," the paper exclaims, is the aria set to John Donne's "Batter My Heart," for J. Robert Oppenheimer, "surely the finest aria written since Puccini."

John Adams's opera Doctor Atomic, which chronicles the hours leading to the detonation of the first atomic bomb, received its UK premiere this past Wednesday at English National Opera. The Independent gives it four stars, asserting that its central aria "might just be the single most beautiful thing Adams has ever written ... There is more, much more, where that came from." The Guardian and the Evening Standard also give the production four stars, as does The Times, which concludes: "Once again Adams has turned 20th-century history into absorbing, provocative music-theatre."

John Adams's 2005 opera Doctor Atomic receives its UK premiere tonight in the English National Opera production at the London Coliseum. The production, based on the Metropolitan Opera's New York premiere last fall, is directed by Penny Woolcock and stars Gerald Finley as J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, and Sasha Cooke as his wife, Kitty Oppenheimer. Conductor Lawrence Renes leads the ENO Orchestra and Chorus in the performances, which run through March 20.

John Adams's opera Doctor Atomic is set to receive its UK premiere next Wednesday, February 25, in the English National Opera's production at the London Coliseum. New Statesman spoke with the composer about the piece, with its "shatteringly powerful" music, and about his place as "the leading American composer of his generation, still in full creative flow, prolific and inventive." The article examines Adams's operas, from his first, Nixon in China, which "transformed the world of opera," to his latest, the "shimmeringly beautiful" A Flowering Tree.

John Adams's 1985 piece The Chairman Dances is this week's selection for The NPR Classical 50, a series naming 50 essential recordings for everyone from first-time listeners to fanatics. "The idea here is that a foxtrot is being danced, but there's more than just the dance-like quality of the music that we hear," says critic Ted Libbey. "I find it very rich that Adams can pull all of these elements all together, and that you can hear this wonderful, exuberant and lush melody come out of this texture. It shows his ability to bring disparate pieces together in a way that does say something."

John Adams will be a featured composer of the Barbican Centre's 2009–10 season in a special John Adams Focus series next year. It will include six Adams works over six performances next February to July, featuring four UK premieres and two concerts with the composer leading the London Symphony Orchestra. The Times (UK) talks to Adams about his operas, with Doctor Atomic set to receive its UK premiere by the English National Opera next week.