"Adams's searingly introspective autobiography reveals the workings of a brilliant musical mind responsible for some of contemporary America's most inventive and original music." So says Publishers Weekly in its recommendation of John Adams's forthcoming memoir, Hallelujah Junction: Composing an American Life. The book, due out next month, is now available for pre-order in the Nonesuch Store along with the companion two-CD collection of works from the composer's Nonesuch recordings. To coincide with the release, the Nonesuch Store is also offering a special discount on every title in the Nonesuch catalog.

Publishers Weekly cites Adams's "groundbreaking musical works Nixon in China and The Death of Klinghoffer" as part of an oeuvre through which the composer "helped shape the landscape of contemporary classical music." The review continues:

Combining the narrative power of opera, the atonal themes of 20th-century classical music, the spooky modulations of jazz and the complex rhythms of the Beatles and the Band, Adams created a new music that could express the fractiousness of the political scene of the 1960s and 1970s. In this entertaining memoir, Adams deftly chronicles his life and times, providing along the way an incisive exploration of the creative process.

To read the complete review, visit publishersweekly.com. To order the Hallelujah Junction book and album, click here.

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In his article "Maximum Minimalists," the Philadelphia Inquirer's classical music critic, David Patrick Stearns, asserts that Adams's newest opera, The Flowering Tree, available for pre-order in the Nonesuch Store, "commands attention musically and dramatically as handily as Verdi." Stearns sees it as an example of the music labeled minimalism's having "found a range of expression undreamed-of 30 years ago," also citing next month's Metropolitan Opera premiere of Adams's Doctor Atomic and this month's release of the 10-CD collection of Philip Glass Nonesuch recordings, the Glass Box.

Stearns compares The Flowering Tree to Richard Strauss's Daphne, each of which features a woman able to transform herself into a tree. He writes of the newer work:

Adams defines the unimaginable, using hypnotic minimalist arpeggios in ways that convey the rhythm of the Earth while melodies wander into unknown regions, governed only by the winds of fate. The woman-to-tree transformation arises from a bedrock of radiant string tremolos; celebratory percussion sounds like pealing bells in a meadow of glistening string harmonics and soft percussion. The assemblage of sounds is one thing, but could traditional composers create such trancelike stasis?

You'll find the complete article at philly.com.