John Adams leads amazing journey at CSO

No other living composer has captured the heart, soul and pulse of our time as effectively as John Adams.

Adams – creator of operas such as "Nixon in China" and America's most frequently performed living American composer – led the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in the CSO premieres of two of his own compositions Friday and Saturday in Music Hall. Each piece was an extraordinary journey that took the listener to a different place. "On the Transmigration of Souls," composed for the New York Philharmonic in 2002 for the first anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks, was deeply moving -- not at all morbid, but somehow transformative.

His "The Dharma at Big Sur," a soaring raga for electric violin and orchestra written for the opening of Disney Hall in Los Angeles in 2003, was an ecstatic, fantastic journey. On Saturday, the crowd's roar at its finish was a testimony to Adams' genius as much as to the "electric" performance by violinist Leila Josefowicz.

The composer, who is also an accomplished conductor, included Richard Strauss' "Tod und Verklarung" (Death and Transfiguration), as an eloquent addition to his program.

Adams' style has grown far beyond his early label of "Minimalist" music – with its mesmerizing repetition of rhythm and melodic fragments. Today, his music is mesmerizing because he has fused so many other influences into his mix – from traditional European styles to Asian, Indian and even jazz.

For his Pulitzer Prize-winning choral work, "On the Transmigration of Souls," Adams used as his texts fragmented phrases from missing persons posters at Ground Zero, as well as from the New York Times' "Portraits in Grief." The May Festival Chorus, prepared by Robert Porco, and Cincinnati Children's Choir, Robyn Lana, director, sang the deeply emotional words against the orchestra's shimmering canvas, colored with chimes and bells. The choruses enunciated clearly and with touching expression, and navigated the work's difficult rhythms impressively.

Against this, a recorded soundtrack intoned a litany of names of those who died, as well as ambient sounds, forming a counterpoint in surround-sound. Moments of serene beauty contrasted against shrieking climaxes in winds and brass, which emerged like immense cries.

The effect was both haunting and luminous, and no one breathed for its duration.

In the second half, Josefowicz took a bow and plugged in her violin, for Adams' "The Dharma at Big Sur." Adams took as his inspiration Jack Kerouac's description of the rugged California coastline, coupled with the beat poet's interest in Buddhism. For the soloist, he wrote a sweetly lyrical raga, stating that "the real meaning of the music in between the notes."

Josefowicz projected an arresting, vocal-like sound on her six-string electric violin. She combined the flair of a classical virtuoso with a freely rhapsodic style that made the music sound completely spontaneous, as she bent tones into blues notes, and soared into the stratosphere.

In two parts, the first, "A New Day," was radiant and meditative, with a color palette that included Asian-tinged bells, harps, samplers, gongs and chimes. The second was jazzy and dance-like. How wonderful it was to see the conductor and soloist "grooving" to this music. The orchestra responded with sonorous, polished playing and the final surge to the ecstatic climax was electrifying.

Adams opened with Strauss' "Death and Transfiguration," in another vivid evocation of emotion. This performance glowed, and offered an occasion for extraordinary solos in the orchestra, notably principal oboist Dwight Parry and concertmaster Timothy Lees.

What did you think? Rate and review this concert at cincinnati.com/entertainment. The CSO performs Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky Thursday through Saturday in Music Hall. Tickets: 513-381-3300, www.cincinnatisymphony.org