John Adams

John Coolidge Adams (born February 15, 1947) is an American composer, clarinetist, and conductor of classical music and opera, with strong roots in minimalism.Among over 60 major compositions are his breakthrough piece for string ensemble Shaker Loops (1978), his first significant large-scale orchestral work Harmonielehre (1985), the popular fanfare Short Ride in a Fast Machine (1986), the oratorio El Niño based on biblical text concerning the nativity of Jesus and Spanish-language poetry, and On the Transmigration of Souls (2002), a choral piece commemorating the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2003. He has written five operas, notably Nixon in China (1987), which recounts Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to China, Doctor Atomic (2005), which covers Robert Oppenheimer, the Manhattan Project, and the building of the first atomic bomb, and the controversial The Death of Klinghoffer (1991), based on the hijacking of the passenger liner Achille Lauro by the Palestine Liberation Front in 1985, and the hijackers' murder of 69-year-old Jewish-American passenger Leon Klinghoffer, who used a wheelchair. In addition to the Pulitzer, honors Adams has received include the Erasmus Prize, five Grammy Awards, the Harvard Arts Medal, France's Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and six honorary doctorates.