In the late 1980s and early 1990s , Adams started to add a new character to his music , something he called " the Trickster . " The Trickster allowed Adams to use the repetitive style and rhythmic drive of minimalism , yet poke fun at it at the same time . When Adams commented on his own characterization of particular minimalist music , he stated that he went joyriding on " those Great Prairies of non-event . " Adams won the annual American Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2003 for his 9/11 memorial piece , '' On the Transmigration of Souls '' . Response to his output as a whole has been more divided , and Adams 's works have been described as both brilliant and boring in reviews that stretch across both ends of the rating spectrum . '' Shaker Loops '' has been described as " hauntingly ethereal , " while 1999 's " Naïve and Sentimental Music " has been called " an exploration of a marvelously extended spinning melody . " '' 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 . " The most critically divisive pieces in Adams 's collection are his historical operas . At first release , '' Nixon in China '' received mostly negative press feedback . Donal Henahan , writing in the '' New York Times '' , 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 . " James Wierzbicki for the '' St. Louis Post-Dispatch '' described Adams 's score as the weak point in an otherwise well-staged performance , noting the music as " inappropriately placid , " " cliché-ridden in the abstract " and " trafficked heavily in Adams 's worn-out Minimalist clichés . " With time , however , the opera has come to be revered as a great and influential production . Robert Hugill for '' Music and Vision '' called the production " astonishing ... nearly twenty years after its premier , " while '' City Beat '' 's Tom McElfresh called Nixon 's score " a character in the drama " and " too intricate , too detailed to qualify as minimalist . " 2003 's '' The Dharma at Big Sur / My Father Knew Charles Ives '' was well-received , particularly at Adams 's alma mater 's publication , the '' Harvard Crimson '' . In a four-star review , Harvard 's newspaper called the electric violin and orchestral concerto " Adams 's best composition of the past ten years . " Most recently , '' The New York Times '' writer Anthony Tommasini commended Adams for his work conducting the American Composers Orchestra . The concert , which took place in April 2007 at Carnegie Hall , was a celebratory performance of Adams 's work on his sixtieth birthday . Tommasini called Adams a " skilled and dynamic conductor , " and noted that the music " was gravely beautiful yet restless . " The opera '' The Death of Klinghoffer '' has been criticized as antisemitic by some , including by the Klinghoffer family . Leon Klinghoffer 's daughters , Lisa and Ilsa , after attending the opera , released a statement saying : " We are outraged at the exploitation of our parents and the coldblooded murder of our father as the centerpiece of a production that appears to us to be anti-Semitic . " In response to these accusations of antisemitism , composer and Oberlin College professor Conrad Cummings wrote a letter to the editor defending '' Klinghoffer '' as " the closest analogue to the experience of Bach 's audience attending his most demanding works , " and noted that , as someone of half-Jewish heritage , he " found nothing anti-Semitic about the work . " After the September 11 attacks in 2001 , performances by the Boston Symphony Orchestra of excerpts from '' Klinghoffer '' were canceled . BSO managing director Mark Volpe remarked of the decision : " We originally programmed the choruses from John Adams ' The Death of Klinghoffer because we believe in it as a work of art , and we still hold that conviction . ... Tanglewood Festival Chorus members explained that it was a purely human reason , and that it was n't in the least bit a criticism of the work . " Adams and '' Klinghoffer '' librettist Alice Goodman criticized the decision , and Adams rejected a request to substitute a performance of '' Harmonium '' , saying : " The reason that I asked them not to do ' Harmonium ' was that I felt that ' Klinghoffer ' is a serious and humane work , and it 's also a work about which many people have made prejudicial judgments without even hearing it . I felt that if I said , ' OK , " Klinghoffer " is too hot to handle , do " Harmonium , " ' that in a sense I would be agreeing with the judgment about ' Klinghoffer . ' " In response to an article by San Francisco Chronicle David Wiegand denouncing the BSO decision , musicologist and critic Richard Taruskin accused the work of catering to " anti-American , anti-Semitic and anti-bourgeois " prejudices
September 11 attacks
September 11 attacks
John Adams (composer)