John Adams, the artist-in-residence for this year's Mostly Mozart festival at Lincoln Center, followed the highly successful three-night run conducting his opera A Flowering Tree—"one of the festival’s hottest tickets," according to New York Times music critic Allan Kozinn—by leading the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) in what Kozinn calls "vigorous, richly detailed performances" of three of his works at Alice Tully Hall Monday night: Shaker Loops, Gnarly Buttons, and Son of Chamber Symphony.

Kozinn describes Shaker Loops as "the earliest of several Adams scores that have become bona fide contemporary classics." Following Monday's concert, he writes, "More than 30 years later it retains its freshness and power to surprise, and it benefited greatly from the energy that the young musicians of ICE brought to it." What's more, as conductor, the composer's "clear gestures and sharp cues no doubt contributed to the clarity and suppleness of the performance."

Kozinn finds nods to Stravinsky in both Gnarly Buttons (1996) and the more recent, "high-spirited work" Son of Chamber Symphony, from 2007. "In both works," he writes, "a listener cannot help but marvel at Mr. Adams’s assurance and flexibility as an orchestrator, and at his interest in drawing on early composers, as well as aspects of jazz and pop."

Read the full concert review at nytimes.com.