John Adams’s music has long since captured the admiration of listeners for its inimitable American qualities. City Noir was inspired by the cultural and social history of Los Angeles, with Adams calling it ‘an imaginary film score’ in its evocation of a terse, melodramatic and menace-drenched sound world. Fearful Symmetries exemplifies Adams’s steamroller motor rhythms, endlessly inventive in their shifts of timbre, texture and color. The album ends with a work dedicated to Marin Alsop, a capricious ‘Spider Dance’ of memorable rhythmic drive.

Lola Montez Does the Spider Dance was written expressly for Marin Alsop, who is probably Adams’s leading champion today.

Alsop conducts Adams’s Shaker Loops, Wound Dresser and Short Ride in a Fast Machine with the Bournemouth Symphony on 8559031. It was a Gramophone Critic’s Choice release: ‘this vividly recorded, inexpensive disc should make a compelling introduction to Adams’ music’.

She also conducts Nixon in China on 866902224: ‘Alsop lets you hear the workings of the music… Adams’ score hasn’t dated a bit. It’s come up gleaming anew’ (ClassicFM).

One of the foremost conductors of our time, Marin Alsop represents a powerful and inspiring voice. The 2023/24 season marks her fifth as chief conductor of the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra; her first as artistic director and chief conductor of the Polish National Radio Symphony; and her first as principal guest conductor of London’s Philharmonia Orchestra. She will begin a new position as principal guest conductor of The Philadelphia Orchestra in the 2024/25 season. A full decade after becoming the first female conductor of the Last Night of the Proms, Alsop made history again in September 2023, as both the first woman and the first American to guest conduct three Last Nights.

Marin Alsop is chief conductor of the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, chief conductor and curator of Chicago’s Ravinia Festival where she conducts the Chicago Symphony’s summer residencies, music director laureate of the Baltimore Symphony and conductor of honour of Brazil’s São Paulo Symphony Orchestra.