Composer John Adams, in a new video from his publisher, Boosey & Hawkes, discusses how great operas throughout history confront deep issues of our human existence, and how contemporary operas—including his own Doctor Atomic, The Death of Klinghoffer, and Nixon in China—explore themes of humanity, intolerance, and power through the lens of recent history. You can watch it here. All of the above and more are included in the forty-disc box set John Adams Collected Works released last year on Nonesuch.  Adams will conduct his opera Girls of the Golden West performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, featuring Julia Bullock among others, at Walt Disney Concert Hall, January 27–29.

"John’s music is about promise and progress," Julia Bullock writes in her note in the new 40-disc box set John Adams Collected Works. "It comments on the inherent threat of exploiting power while embodying it. There’s fire and fragility, placed alongside organized form and frequency. I love John’s music. I love singing it, learning from it. And I love listening to it." You can read her complete note from the box set here.