Congratulations to all of the Nonesuch nominees for the 67th Grammy Awards: The Black Keys for Best Rock Performance and Best Rock Song for "Beautiful People (Stay High)," from Ohio Players; Ambrose Akinmusire's Owl Song for Best Jazz Instrumental Album; John Adams's Girls of the Golden West for Best Opera Recording and Best Engineered Album, Classical; Timo Andres's The Blind Banister for Best Engineered Album, Classical; and Caroline Shaw and Sō Percussion's Rectangles and Circumstance for Best Chamber Music / Small Ensemble Performance.

"Right from the start, the very first notes sound almost like a pickaxe going against rock and then against that the singing has a certain quality that I think has that same simplicity of affect," composer John Adams says of his 2017 opera, Girls of the Golden West, in a new Boosey & Hawkes video marking the work's recently released first recording. "All of that comes together in this opera in a way that I think only opera can actually address, because it addresses you on an intellectual level, but it also fundamentally touches you on an emotional level." You can see what else he had to say here.

"The winner of five Grammy Awards and the Pulitzer Prize for Music, John Adams is one of America's greatest and most performed living composers," BBC Radio 4's This Cultural Life host John Wilson says of his guest. They talk about Adams' life, work, and the influence of Leonard Bernstein, Duke Ellington, Steve Reich, Charles Dickens, the state of California, and more. You can hear their conversation here.

The first recording of John Adams’ 2017 opera, Girls of the Golden West, is out now on Nonesuch. It tells the story of the California Gold Rush not through familiar time-worn myth, but in the words and deeds of real people. Longtime Adams collaborator Peter Sellars drew from original sources from the era—letters, journals, newspaper articles, and familiar song lyrics—to create the libretto. The composer leads the LA Phil in this recording made in Disney Hall, with the Los Angeles Master Chorale led by Grant Gershon and a cast featuring Davóne Tines, Julia Bullock, Paul Appleby, Hye Jung Lee, Elliot Madore, Daniela Mack, and Ryan McKinny.

Girls of the Golden West, John Adams’ eighth music theater work to be released by Nonesuch, is due April 26. The composer leads the LA Phil in this recording made in Disney Hall, with the Los Angeles Master Chorale led by Grant Gershon. You can hear the aria "Wagon Ride," featuring Davóne Tines and Julia Bullock, now. For the opera, which tells the story of the California Gold Rush, longtime Adams collaborator Peter Sellars drew from original sources from the era—letters, journals, newspaper articles, and familiar song lyrics—to create the libretto. The cast also includes Paul Appleby, Hye Jung Lee, Elliot Madore, Daniela Mack, and Ryan McKinny.

The Metropolitan Opera has announced its 2024–25 season, including the Met premiere of John Adams's latest opera, Antony and Cleopatra, on May 12, 2025. The adaptation of Shakespeare’s drama stars soprano Julia Bullock, following her company debut in Adams’s El Niño this April, as Cleopatra, opposite bass-baritone Gerald Finley’s Antony. Adams himself conducts a new staging by director Elkhanah Pulitzer, who transports the story from ancient Rome to the Golden Age of Hollywood in the 1930s. Performances run through June 7, 2025. 

“In many ways, John Adams is the quintessential California composer,” Nadia Sirota writes in the introduction to Adams’ audio interview with the California Festival, a statewide initiative showcasing contemporary classical music, including live performances at venues across the state over the past three weeks. Adams, a resident of Northern California since moving there from New England in 1971, talks about his early days in the area and the inspiration behind some of his most influential early works, like Christian Zeal and Activity, Phrygian Gates, Shaker Loops, and Harmonielehre. You can hear what he has to say here.

Composer John Adams talks about his acclaimed opera Doctor Atomic and the aria “Batter My Heart” in a new video from Boosey & Hawkes. The opera, with a libretto by Peter Sellars drawn from original sources—including, for this aria, the John Donne sonnet—tells the story of Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer and the first atomic bomb explosion in New Mexico in July 1945. The video features scenes from the Dutch National Opera production starring Gerald Finley, who originated the role of Oppenheimer in 2005 and can be heard on the Nonesuch first recording of Doctor Atomic, with the composer leading the BBC Singers and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and Julia Bullock as Kitty Oppenheimer. You can hear “Batter My Heart” from the recording here as well.

The music manuscripts and papers of composer and conductor John Adams have been acquired by the Library of Congress. “The Library of Congress could scarcely conjure a contemporary music collection that carries with it as much recognition and consequence as the manuscripts and papers of John Adams,” said Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. “We are proud to count the collection of Adams’ materials among our prized music treasures.” “To have my archives under the care and preservation of the Library of Congress is a great privilege,” said Adams. “Over the years I have visited the Music Division, met their brilliant staff and had the special chance to hold in my hands manuscripts by among others, Brahms, Schoenberg, Bernstein, and Charlie Parker. As an American composer—especially with a name like mine—it seems only right that my own work should be with this great institution.”

The Los Angeles Philharmonic has announced its 2023–24 concert season, and featured among the performers taking the Walt Disney Concert Hall stage in its 20th anniversary season are John Adams, Thomas Adès, Timo Andres, Brad Mehldau, Natalie Merchant, and Cécile McLorin Salvant.

Composer John Adams, in two new videos from his publisher, Boosey & Hawkes, talks about his early experiences with music and finding his voice as a composer. In the first video, he shares some childhood experiences that led him to want to become a composer. In the second, he recounts a crisis of musical identity he went through in his 20s and 30s and how he found his own musical language, informed by the minimalist pioneers, jazz, Stravinsky, and others.

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.