Editing John Adams (composer) (section)

===Overview===
Adams won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2003 for ''[[On the Transmigration of Souls]]''.<ref name=pulitzer/> Response to his output as a whole has been more divided, and Adams's works have been called both brilliant and boring in reviews that stretch across both ends of the rating spectrum. ''[[Shaker Loops]]'' has been called "hauntingly ethereal", while 1999's ''[[Naïve and Sentimental Music]]'' has been called "an exploration of a marvelously extended spinning melody".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thestandingroom.com/blog/2004/10/long_ride_in_a_.html|title=Long Ride in a Stalled Machine.|publisher=Thestandingroom.com|access-date=September 22, 2014|archive-date=July 11, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110711075256/http://www.thestandingroom.com/blog/2004/10/long_ride_in_a_.html|url-status=dead}}</ref> ''The New York Times'' called 1996's ''[[Hallelujah Junction]]'' "a two-piano work played with appealingly sharp edges", and 2001's ''[[American Berserk]]'' "a short, volatile solo piano work".<ref>{{cite news |last=Kozinn |first=Allan |author-link=Allan Kozinn |date=March 23, 2005 |title=Beyond Minimalism: The Later Works of John Adams |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/23/arts/music/23adam.html |access-date=February 11, 2009 }}</ref>

The most critically divisive pieces in Adams's collection are his historical operas. At first release, ''Nixon in China'' received mostly negative press. In ''The New York Times'', [[Donal Henahan]] called the [[Houston Grand Opera]] world premiere of the work "worth a few giggles but hardly a strong candidate for the standard repertory" and "visually striking but coy and insubstantial".<ref>[[Donal Henahan|Henahan, Donal]] (October 24, 1987). [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE7DC173AF937A15753C1A961948260 "Opera: ''Nixon in China''"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090313005033/http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE7DC173AF937A15753C1A961948260 |date=March 13, 2009 }}. ''[[The New York Times]]''. Retrieved February 11, 2009.</ref> In the ''St. Louis Post-Dispatch'', James Wierzbicki called Adams's score the weak point in an otherwise well-staged performance, describing it as "inappropriately placid", "cliché-ridden in the abstract" and trafficking "heavily in Adams's worn-out Minimalist clichés".<ref>Wierzbicki, James (December 6, 1992). [http://pages.sbcglobal.net/jameswierzbicki/adams.htm "John Adams: ''Nixon in China''."] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080210155025/http://pages.sbcglobal.net/jameswierzbicki/adams.htm|date=February 10, 2008}} ''[[St. Louis Post-Dispatch]]''.</ref> But with time, the opera has come to be revered. In ''Music and Vision'', [[Robert Hugill]] called a production "astonishing ... nearly twenty years after its premier",<ref>Hugill, Robert. [http://www.mvdaily.com/articles/2006/07/nixon1.htm "Ensemble: A Mythic Story: ''Nixon in China''."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121025112513/http://www.mvdaily.com/articles/2006/07/nixon1.htm |date=October 25, 2012 }} ''Music & Vision''. July 2, 2006.</ref> while ''The Guardian'''s [[Fiona Maddocks]] praised the score's "diverse and subtle palette" and Adams's "rhythmic ingenuity".<ref>{{Cite web|last=Maddocks|first=Fiona|date=February 22, 2020|title=Nixon in China review – a gripping human drama|url=http://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/feb/22/nixon-in-china-scottish-opera-review-theatre-royal-glasgow-john-adams|access-date=September 7, 2020|work=[[The Guardian]]}}</ref>

More recently, ''New York Times'' critic [[Anthony Tommasini]] commended a 2007 [[American Composers Orchestra]] concert celebrating Adams's 60th birthday, calling Adams a "skilled and dynamic conductor" and the music "gravely beautiful yet restless".<ref>[[Anthony Tommasini|Tommasini, Anthony]] (April 30, 2007). [https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/arts/music/30adam.html "Doing Everything but Playing the Music."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170905101201/http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/arts/music/30adam.html |date=September 5, 2017 }} ''The New York Times''. Retrieved February 11, 2009.</ref>