The inclusive Mr Adams

摘要

In the best traditions of American democracy, John Adams is a passionately inclusive composer. Throughout his career, he has resisted attempts to segregate high and low culture, popular and classical music. This breadth was part of his birthright: his father was a big-band clarinettist, his mother a ballroom singer, and they both loved the music of the classical masters. As Mr Adams himself once put it, "I grew up in a house where Benny Goodman and Mozart were not separated."