`American Harmonist' Gets His Turn

In an age of "biographies" and "biopics" about teenage rock stars, it seems
somewhat of an oversight that 53-year-old John Adams, arguably at the top
of the contemporary classical-music hit parade, still isn't chronicled in
a learned tome.  SFCV has learned that remedy is on the horizon.  UC-Santa
Cruz music professor Fredric Lieberman is at work on "American Harmonist:
The Life and Music of John Adams," planned to weigh in at about 400 pages.

Why Lieberman? His success with books on music of a wide variety is the
main reason - from a large, comprehensive biography of Lou Harrison to
"Drumming at the Edge of Magic:  a Journey into the Spirit of Percussion,"
with and about Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart.  The Adams biography,
Lieberman says, will be both a book for the general reader and a scholarly
work, authorized by the composer, who has given full access to his archives
and "as much of his time as needed" for interviews.

Besides being planned as a personal and musical biography, Lieberman's
work aims to explore major issues surrounding Adams' works, and "deal head
on with controversies in academia and the popular press...  make clear once
and for all both his debt to and divergence from Minimalism."

Janos Gereben/SF
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