John Adams, Composer Autobiography - This is especially for Phil

While I'm looking (I'm still looking, this is a quick break) through the LA Times today, this story jumped out at me too. I know a composer. I never thought about composer autobiographies before. So, Phil, this one's for you.

BOOKS
John Adams explains how he found his voice in his memoir 'Hallelujah Junction'
The composer's autobiography shows how indirect his path has been.
By Scott Timberg, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 19, 2008
BERKELEY -- WHEN John Adams, the celebrated composer who is to his adopted California as Sibelius is to Finland, decided to write a memoir of his life and music, he realized there was virtually no model for his project.

"Most composers," he said over lunch at an upscale Italian cafe near his home here, "are composers because that's the way they want to communicate with the world. Even those who can write well, they don't want to express themselves in words."

The few existing examples didn't inspire him. "Most of them were really awful. I was painfully aware of the fact that the few composers who set out to write something wrote a boring then-I-did-this, then-I-did-that thing. The only one I thought was tasty and interesting was [Hector] Berlioz, but unfortunately the Berlioz is only good for the first 50 pages." [The rest is at the link above.]