The Chairman Dances

The Chairman Dances is a 1985 composition by John Adams,[1] subtitled Foxtrot for Orchestra and lasting about 13 minutes. A commission from the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, it has several dance-like tunes and has been described by Adams as an “outtake” from Act III of the opera he was working on at the time, Nixon in China.[2] The word “Dances” in the title is a verb, not a noun. In the opera, the music depicts Madame Mao gate-crashing a presidential banquet, hanging paper lanterns, and performing a seductive dance; Chairman Mao descends from his portrait, and the two dance a foxtrot, back in time together. The piece ends with the sound of a gramophone winding down.[2]

−

For Peter Martins' ballet, see The Chairman Dances (ballet).

The Chairman Dances was used in the Civilization IV[3] and I Am Love[4] soundtracks.

Instrumentation

The work is scored for a large orchestra.[5]

gollark: I wonder if I could somehow abuse the large, nice and quick-to-refresh display from my ancient kindle thing.
gollark: Yes, I think I tried that and it had the same issue but using an entire core constantly.
gollark: Still the most CPU-using program on my server mostly, but I don't use it for much.
gollark: It seems fairly lightweight and very easy to set up since it doesn't really have much configuration.
gollark: That seems... convoluted and possibly prone to horrible problems?

References
  1. Cahill, Sarah. "Adams, John". Grove Music Online. Oxford University Press. Retrieved September 17, 2015.
  2. Adams, John. ""The Chairman Dances"". Earbox. Retrieved 5 April 2016.
  3. Grahckheuhl (2010-09-26), Civilization 4 Soundtrack: The Chairman Dances: Foxtrot for Orchestra, retrieved 2016-07-26
  4. IMDB (2010-10-18), I Am Love trailer, retrieved 2016-10-18
  5. Adams, John (1985). "The Chairman Dances: Foxtrot for Orchestra". G. Schirmer Inc. Retrieved April 24, 2016.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.