Music: Chairman Dances

John Adams is a composer best known for his haunting minimalist and postminimalist pieces. If you've ever played the PC game "Civilization IV," you've probably heard much of his work, as it comprises much of the game's soundtrack in the "Modern Age" period of play. My favorite piece from John Adams is "The Chairman Dances":



The work is pretty abstract, yet it's really a byproduct of the music for Act 3 of John Adams' opera, "Nixon in China." If you can picture Chairman Mao dancing a foxtrot as the hope of the Shanghai Communique dies down, then you have a headstart into understanding the work: