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John Coolidge Adams (born February 15, 1947) is an American composer, clarinetist, and conductor of classical music and opera, with strong roots in minimalism. His works include Nixon in China (1987), Harmonielehre (1985), Short Ride in a Fast Machine (1986), On the Transmigration of Souls (2002), a choral piece commemorating the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks (for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2003), and Shaker Loops (1978), a minimalist four-movement work for strings. His operas include Nixon in China (1987), which recounts Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to China, Doctor Atomic (2005), which covers Robert Oppenheimer, the Manhattan Project, and the building of the first atomic bomb and The Death of Klinghoffer (1991) based on the hijacking of the passenger liner Achille Lauro by the Palestine Liberation Front in 1985, and the hijackers' murder of 69-year-old Jewish-American passenger Leon Klinghoffer, who used a wheelchair.The opera has drawn controversy, including allegations by some (including Klinghoffer's two daughters) that the opera is antisemitic and glorifies terrorism.The work's creators and others have disputed these criticisms.
