John Adams

Every now and then you'll find composers in a concert hall, ready to bound up to the stage for a bow after someone else leads a performance of their work. That happened just last week, when John Adams was on hand to hear Baltimore Symphony Orchestra music director Marin Alsop conduct his kinetic Fearful Symmetries. But Adams is back this week, and he's not confined to a listening role. Alsop had the welcome idea of inviting several prominent composers to conduct programs that combined their own music with something from older repertoire, chiefly by Beethoven, whose nine symphonies are scattered throughout the season.

In Philadelphia 223 years ago today, a group of men pledged "our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor" to launch an experiment in liberty."The declaration of American independence was the proud national instrument which first declared to nations that All Men are EQUAL," the Philadelphia newspaper Aurora reminded Americans 23 years after the declaration was adopted. It continued:"This illustrious and immortal memorial of American wisdom and American virtue . . . as scintillated over the whole Universe: -- this grand and indelible register of Man's Right and of the wrongs of a nation at the hands of a tyrant gave at once a deadly blow to every class of meretricious distinctions and absurd titles -- It established the right of men . . . to govern themselves."

FOR TWO centuries, American presidents have been in search of their legacies, trolling an evanescent future for the elusive ''judgment of history.'' Winning a big war is good for historical points. Avoiding one, which John Adams did, is not. The intellectual rigor and eloquence of the nation's second president, along with his candor and pomposity, have often been lost to history, just as Adams was squeezed off Mount Rushmore by his predecessor, George Washington, and his successor, Thomas Jefferson.

NOW MEN HAD TO declare themselves. As the delegates signed the Declaration of Independence that might prove to be their death warrant, there was literal gallows humor. "I shall have a great advantage over you when we are all hung for what we are doing," Virginia's bulky Benjamin Harrison cracked to Massachusetts' elfin Elbridge Gerry. "From the size and weight of my body I shall die in a few minutes, but from the lightness of your body, you will dance in the air for an hour or two before you are dead."

IN THEIR OLD AGE, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson engaged in a hot dispute over the nature of equality. It was a peculiarly American debate that has never really ended.Jefferson, the apostle of equality, sounded the popular view: In the abundant opportunities of the New World, ''rank, and birth, and tinsel-aristocracy will finally shrink into insignificance.''Adams would have none of that, reports his biographer, Joseph J. Ellis, in ''Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams'' (Norton, 1993)

If Congressional debates today seem acrimonious, you should have been around in the early summer of 1776. Colonial delegates argued over every word in what became the Declaration of Independence.You can eavesdrop on that revolutionary debate via the Cockpit in Court production of the musical "1776." It brings such personalities as John Adams and Benjamin Franklin alive and helps animate the political issues that made the quest for independence so difficult.As with most historical pageants, it unfortunately has its share of long speeches and tediously didactic moments.

POWDERED WIGS and "Yankee Doodle" are out; body piercing and the Macarena are in.(Well, the Macarena was in.) Yet nothing really changes. Here are the opening words of a new book:"It was a special time in the history of America. The Vice President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, called it a `reign of witches.' A short, fat man who puffed at `seegars' and believed in monarchy was President of the United States. At incautious moments, he predicted the nation's conversion to a kingdom with a titled nobility to oversee Congress.

HAVRE de GRACE -- He was born 264 years ago today in Westmoreland County, Virginia, and died 67 years and 10 months later at Mt. Vernon.For years his birthday was observed as a solemn national holiday, but because it doesn't always fall on a Monday, it has been widely replaced in our time by something called President's Day, which does.American children still learn his name in school, or in some schools. Even the ones who aren't quite sure in what century the Civil War was fought know in some detail who he was and what he did. His face appears on the dollar bill, which some in the government now think should be replaced with a coin in order to help the vending-machine industry.

AS THE NEW AMERICAN NATION celebrated its 20th Fourth of July 200 years ago today, it found itself embroiled in the first partisan presidential election in its short history. George Washington had reigned, virtually unopposed, after two uncontested elections in 1788 and 1792.By the time the 1796 election rolled around, the political parties the Founders had sought to avoid were very much in the process formation -- their impact upon the future of the nation impossible to exaggerate. The seeds were planted in the personal rivalry of Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, but they were nurtured in the conflicting interests of regions and classes.

Let it be known that the Chesapeake Youth Symphony Orchestra is in very capable hands.Scott Speck, in his debut concert at the helm, had his 56 musicians in excellent form Sunday evening in a program of Tchaikovsky, Bizet, Brahms and John Adams at Key Auditorium in Annapolis.Mr. Speck, 33, establishes a much different podium persona from that of his predecessor, Arne Running, the emotional Philadelphian who served the CYSO so well in his two seasons here. Where Mr. Running stomped the feet and stabbed the air to inspire his troops, Mr. Speck's kinder, gentler stick work coaxes the players in a less insistent manner.

In April, after the Senate, buckling under the threat of a presidential veto, failed to pass a law that would close a loophole and allow women to sue for equal pay, an outraged Sen. Barbara Mikulski took the floor to speak. "Many people have been mesmerized by the John Adams miniseries," said the Maryland Democrat. "I like John Adams, but I really like Abigail. "While John Adams was down in Philadelphia writing the Declaration of Independence and laying the groundwork for the Constitution and inventing America, Abigail Adams wrote her husband from the farm - while raising the four children and keeping the family going.

Pasadena Theatre Company, showing a good sense of timing or a little bit of luck, scheduled in the middle of an election season a musical chronicling the vote for independence by the Continental Congress in the summer of 1776. The theater group knew about the historical parallels between the 1969 Broadway opening when Americans were divided over the Vietnam War and the present political divisions over Iraq, but it is unlikely to have anticipated the wrangling in Congress over the financial crisis during this musical's opening week.

History was made on several fronts at the 60th Primetime Emmy Awards last night. The HBO miniseries John Adams surpassed the 2003 HBO production Angels in America to become the most honored long form program in TV history. Meanwhile, AMC's Mad Men, a stylish series about life on Madison Avenue in the 1960s, became the first basic cable program to win as best drama. And then came writer-actress Tina Fey and the series she created, NBC's 30 Rock, dominating the comedy category like no other sitcom in years as it took home awards for best writing, best actress, best actor and best comedy.

History might be made on two fronts tonight at the Emmys. While much has been written about either AMC's Mad Men or FX's Damages having a chance to become the first basic cable series to win as best drama, even more compelling is the possibility that HBO's John Adams could be the most honored program in TV history before the night ends. The historically sound and dramatically dazzling miniseries about the life of America's second president won eight Emmys last week at the Creative Arts portion of the competition and needs only three more tonight to tie Angels in America, the 2003 HBO miniseries based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play about AIDS, and the 1976 ABC production Eleanor and Franklin, a made-for-TV movie about the life of President Franklin Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor.

The leading man is a short, bald, pot-bellied lawyer with a passion for reading Latin and a habit of making enemies. The leading lady quotes Shakespeare, dresses modestly and seldom looks like she's having fun. The opening hour unfolds against a backdrop of mud, snow and the endless gray of a New England winter. And all seven hours are filled with talk in historically accurate English accents about big ideas from the 18th century like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This is not exactly the stuff of which TV miniseries are usually made.

Every now and then you'll find composers in a concert hall, ready to bound up to the stage for a bow after someone else leads a performance of their work. That happened just last week, when John Adams was on hand to hear Baltimore Symphony Orchestra music director Marin Alsop conduct his kinetic Fearful Symmetries. But Adams is back this week, and he's not confined to a listening role. Alsop had the welcome idea of inviting several prominent composers to conduct programs that combined their own music with something from older repertoire, chiefly by Beethoven, whose nine symphonies are scattered throughout the season.

During a "Composers in Conversation" appearance last week before an attentive audience at Theatre Project, John Adams offered revealing glimpses into his life, his music and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra program he will conduct this week. He also dropped a little verbal incendiary. "There are a lot of composers today," Adams said, "just not a lot of original ones. You could count the number of great composers today on half a hand." Ouch. That declaration may have seemed a little surprising coming from the soft-spoken, gray-haired Adams, dressed in the earth-tone casual you'd expect from a man long and happily based in Berkeley, Calif.

Capt. John Adams Webster was born Sept. 19, 1789, the son of Samuel and Margaret Adams Webster. After leaving the Creswell area at age 14 to become a merchant sailor, he joined the Navy at the beginning of the War of 1812. By the time of the attack on Fort McHenry by the British on Sept. 13, 1814, Webster was in command of a six-gun battery defending the entrance to the port of Baltimore. He received recognition for remaining at his post despite being wounded twice. His reputation for tenacity and efficiency continued after the war with an appointment by President James Monroe to the Revenue Marine.

MISSING ... Such a simple, straightforward word, but almost unbearably heavy, with layer upon layer of meaning, when intoned and repeated by a boy's voice during the opening moments of John Adams' On the Transmigration of Souls, his Pulitzer Prize-winning composition, premiered a year after the attacks of 9 / 11. OF MUSIC AND MEMORY: ON THE TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS / / BSO / / 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday, 3 p.m. April 30 / / Meyerhoff Symphony Hall /...

On August 16, 2005, RALPH C. ADAMS JR., beloved husband of Linda S. Adams; loving father of Ralph C. Adams III, Laura Edmonds, Timothy Adams, Terry Hershberger, Ronald and Richard Adams; also survived by nineteen grandchildren and three great-grandchildren; devoted brother of Loretta Drab and John Adams. Family will receive friends Thursday 3 to 5 and 7 to 9 P.M. at HARRY H. WITZKE's FAMILY FUNERAL HOME INC., 4112 Old Columbia Pike, Ellicott City, where a Service will be held Friday 1 P.M. Interment Good Shepherd Cemetery.