John Adams's creative output spans a wide range of media: works for orchestra, opera, video, film, and dance, as well as electronic and instrumental music.

Such pieces as Harmonium, Harmonielehre, Shaker Loops, and The Chairman Dances are among the best known and most frequently performed of contemporary American music.

In these works he has taken minimalism into a new and fresh terrain characterized by luminous sonorities and a powerful and dramatic approach to form.