Composer and conductor John Adams spoke with France Musique for a thirty-minute tête-à-tête in English during a trip to conduct Orchestre Symphonique de Radio France in concert earlier this year. The conversation covers his music, musical influences, current events, current social trends, Kendrick Lamar, and some of his favorite pieces by Debussy, Stravinsky, and more. You can watch it here.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic has announced its 2020–21 season, and among the artists performing at Walt Disney Concert Hall are John Adams, Joshua Redman, and Brad Mehldau. The season also brings performances of several works by Adams, including his operas Nixon in China and Girls of the Golden West, and by Louis Andriessen (De Staat), Steve Reich, Timo Andres, and Nico Muhly.

Carnegie Hall has announced its 2020–21 concert season, and featured among the performers taking the esteemed hall's stages are a number of artists familiar to readers of the Nonesuch Journal, including Rhiannon Giddens, who is a Perspectives artist for the season, John Adams, Chris Thile, Caroline Shaw, and Kronos Quartet.

The Guardian has published a number of lists of the Best Culture of the 21st Century (So Far). Several Nonesuch artists and recordings have made the lists, including works by Rokia Traoré, John Adams, Steve Reich, Louis Andriessen, and more. Also on the lists are films for which Nonesuch released soundtracks by Jonny Greenwood, Clint Mansell, and more.

Congratulations to composer John Adams, whose Doctor Atomic has won the Opus Klassik Award for Best Opera Recording – 20th/21st Century. On this first recording of the piece, the composer leads the BBC Singers and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, with a cast led by Gerald Finley and Julia Bullock. Peter Sellars created the libretto, drawing from original sources to explore the final hours leading up to the first atomic bomb explosion in 1945. The Opus Klassik awards ceremony will take place in Berlin on October 13.

Congratulations to John Adams, the winner of the 2019 Erasmus Prize from the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation. The prize is awarded annually to a person or institution that has made an exceptional contribution to the field of humanities, social sciences, or the arts. It will be presented in November 2019 by King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands and includes €150,000 in prize money. Adams "receives the prize because he has created a new musical idiom by fusing elements from jazz, pop, and classical music," says the Foundation.

Carnegie Hall has announced its 2019–20 concert season, and featured among the performers taking the esteemed hall's stages are Brad Mehldau, Kronos Quartet, Jeremy Denk, Timo Andres, and Ry Cooder, as well as the New York premiere of a new work by John Adams.

John Adams's Doctor Atomic has been nominated for the BBC Music Magazine Award for Opera. A jury of experts selected the nominees from recordings that received five-star reviews in the magazine. Winners will be chosen by public vote, which has begun, and announced at a ceremony in London on April 10.

Congratulations to all of the Nonesuch nominees for the 61st Annual Grammy Awards: David Byrne for American Utopia; Brad Mehldau and his Trio for Seymour Reads the Constitution!; Joshua Redman, Brian Blade, Scott Colley, and Ron Miles for Still Dreaming; Punch Brothers for All Ashore; John Adams for Doctor Atomic; Laurie Anderson and Kronos Quartet for Landfall; and Judith Sherman, up for Producer of the Year, Classical, for her work including Steve Reich's Pulse / Quartet.

NPR's list of the 100 Best Songs of 2018 includes David Byrne's "I Dance Like This," from his new album, American Utopia ("Byrne's best solo release in years, and its touring incarnation might just have been the most original stage show of 2018," says Bob Boilen), Gabriel Kahane's "November," from his Nonesuch debut album, Book of Travelers ("a poignant reflection on the ties that still bind us, politics be damned," says Nate Chinen), and Gerald Finley's performance of "Batter My Heart" from John Adams's opera Doctor Atomic ("haunting, tautly gorgeous aria," says Anastasia Tsioulcas).

The first recording of John Adams's 2005 opera, Doctor Atomic, is out now. Peter Sellars created the libretto, drawing from original sources. The composer leads the BBC Singers, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and a cast led by Gerald Finley as Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer. "A magnificent accomplishment that easily takes its place alongside the other Adams-Sellars triumphs," exclaimed the Los Angeles Times. "It contains music of unearthly splendor." "Musically exhilarating," says the New York Times. "This is one of Mr. Adams’s most sophisticated scores, with some of his finest choral music." "Grippingly vivid," exclaims the Financial Times in a five-star review; "one of his most far-reaching scores."

The latest issue of BBC Music Magazine is out now, including reviews of three new Nonesuch releases: Steve Reich's Pulse / Quartet ("poignant, intoxicating"), John Adams's Violin Concerto ("expansively beautiful, dazzling"), and Brad Mehldau Trio's Seymour Reads the Constitution! ("the art of the trio").