The current ‘Yes, we can’ mantra is by no means new: John Adams has been bridging extremes for years. His music blurs the distinctions between high and low, American and European, exotic and Western. In the 1970s he was categorised as a composer of minimalist music – a straight jacket which he swiftly outgrew or, more aptly expressed: burst free from. The combination of baroque elements, swing, ragas and opera buffa humour is quintessentially Adams. Few composers have brought together so many different stylistic periods and genres in a single oeuvre with so much success. In his two Chamber Symphonies he combines a Schönbergesque approach with animation film music and funk with resounding results.

Artists

JOHN ADAMS
Chamber symphony
Gnarly Buttons
Son of Chamber Symphony

ASKO|SCHÖNBERG
conductor
Reinbert de Leeuw
clarinet
David Kweksilber