Adams, J: The Dharma at Big Sur

The latest release from the Pulitizer Prize-winning John Adams – whom the Independent has characterized as ‘One of the most significant and most performed contemporary composers today’ – features two highly acclaimed, recently commissioned orchestral works, The Dharma At Big Sur and My Father Knew Charles Ives, performed here by the BBC Symphony with Adams himself conducting. While panoramic in scope, these multi-part pieces are also deeply personal in nature. Described as ‘autobiographical sound-memories’ by the BBC, they evoke the well-travelled American composer’s east coast/west coast life and wide-ranging musical education. Adams uses as jumping off points his childhood in Vermont and New Hampshire and his grown-up migration to Northern California, where he now lives, paying homage along the way to the composers and writers who have influenced and inspired him, from Henry David Thoreau to Jack Kerouac, Charles Ives to Terry Riley.