Hallelujah Junction: Composing an American Life »

John Adams was born in Massachusetts in 1947. He is the composer of such acclaimed works as Harmonielehre, Nixon in China, Naive and Sentimental Music, El Niño, and On the Transmigration of Souls, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2003. He lives in Berkeley, California.

John Adams is one of the most respected and loved of contemporary composers, and he has won his eminence fair and square: he has aimed high, he has addressed life as it is lived now, and he has found a language that makes sense to a wide audience (Alex Ross, The New Yorker). Now, in Hallelujah Junction, he incisively relates his life story, from his childhood to his early studies in classical composition amid the musical and social ferment of the 1960s, from his landmark minimalist innovations to his controversial docu-operas. Adams offers a no-holds-barred portrait of the rich musical scene of 1970s California, and of his contemporaries and colleagues, including John Cage, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass. He describes the process of writing, rehearsing, and performing his renowned works, as well as both the pleasures and the challenges of writing serious music in a country and time largely preoccupied with pop culture.

Hallelujah Junction is a thoughtful and original memoir that will appeal to both longtime Adams fans and newcomers to contemporary music. Not since Leonard Bernstein s Findings has an eminent composer so candidly and accessibly explored his life and work. This searching self-portrait offers not only a glimpse into the work and world of one of our leading artists, but also an intimate look at one of the most exciting chapters in contemporary culture.

The New York Times - Charles McGrath

…[an] absorbing book…[Adams's] autobiography talks movingly, and sometimes quite funnily, about being depressed, solitary and creatively blocked before he found a way out of aimlessness and self-doubt. He brings to the book the Wagnerian "sincerity" he so admired, but without Wagnerian self-importance. Mr. Adams writes so well that it's a little dismaying for someone who clings to the notion that writing, like composing, is a calling developed over years, and not a hobby picked up in middle age. It's a relief to see him (or his copy editor) let a few amateurisms slip by. And as good as his prose is, you wish the book could have come wired with a soundtrack illustrating his points and sampling some of his hits.

1 Winnipesaukee Gardens 3

2 From Help! to "Let it Be" 28

3 Free Radicals 47

4 Regal Apparel 62

5 Faulty Wiring 80

6 A Harmony Lesson 100

7 The People are the Heroes Now 125

8 Singing Terrorists 145

9 Mongrel Airs 171

10 The Machine in the Garden 194

11 Technical Difficulties 210

12 How Could This Happen? 237

13 A Swirl of Atoms 268

14 Tree of Life 294

15 Garage Sale of The Mind 311

Suggested Listening and Viewing 321

Acknowledgments 325

Index 327