He is a conductor born in Berkeley, California who grew up in Morro Bay, California. He studied music and sociology at the University of California, later moving to San Francisco StateUniversity to study law and take composition courses.
He became an assistant conductor to Sarah Caldwell at the Opera Company of Boston and followed on as artistic director and principal conductor of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, which he gave up in 2006, the Halle Orchestra in Manchester, England, the Orchestra of the Opera de Lyon, and the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra.
For 26 years he has been a conductor for the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra and over those years he has premiered John Adams’ The Death of Klinghoffer in Paris, Katja Saariaho’s L’amour de loin and he was chosen by Olivier Messiaen to premiere his Saint Francois de Assise.
In 2006 he became the musical director of the Bavarian State Opera and the Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal and the general music director of the Hamburg State Opera in 2015.
John Coolidge Adams recordings
Death of Klinghoffer, The
Nonesuch NONE 79281 (CD: The Death of Klinghoffer)
Conductor – Kent Nagano
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