John Adams is a composer, conductor, and creative thinker. His works, both operatic and symphonic, stand out among contemporary classical compositions for their depth of expression, brilliance of sound, and the profoundly humanist nature of their themes. Over the past 40 years, Adams’s music has played a decisive role in turning contemporary musical aesthetics from academic modernism and toward a more expansive, expressive language, entirely characteristic of his New World surroundings. Works spanning more than three decades have entered the repertoire and are among the most performed contemporary classical music today: Harmonielehre, Absolute Jest, Short Ride in a Fast Machine, and stage works including Nixon in China, El Niño, and Doctor Atomic. Author of the acclaimed autobiography Hallelujah Junction, Adams has also been published by both The New Yorker and the New York Times Book Review. (Photo by Deborah O’Grady.)