I'm blacklisted, says opera maestro

[Cronopio]

Source: Guardian UK

John Adams, one of the most revered living classical composers, has claimed that he is blacklisted in his native America and is being followed by the security services.

The 61-year-old musician has accused the United States of being in the grip of a political and moral panic and has complained that he is now grilled by airport immigration officers whenever he flies home because of his controversial reputation.

...

Interviewed on BBC Radio 3's Music Matters yesterday, Adams said he was now 'blacklisted'. 'I can't check in at the airport now without my ID being taken and being grilled. You know, I'm on a homeland security list, probably because of having written The Death of Klinghoffer, so I'm perfectly aware that I, like many artists and many thoughtful people in the country, am being followed.'

...

During the interview, presenter Petroc Trelawny asked Adams if he felt that America was living through an age of paranoia that resembled the McCarthy era of the Fifties. 'Well it is, and of course Congress has continued to sign off on these Patriot Acts that continue to clip the wings of human rights,' said Adams, adding that poets, novelists and musicians with left-wing leanings are often watched, including, he said, the American composer Aaron Copland, who was 'hounded' all his life. 'I'm sure the FBI had a large file on him. So we artists assume that we are being followed.'


Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/oct/19/classicalmusicandopera-usnationalsecurity

---

Funny thing about no-fly lists. They just keep getting longer and longer and longer ...

[Mind_your_head]

1. That's not a baton, it's a BOXCUTTER!!!

:scared: <-----:sarcasm:

Stupid and tragic beyond belief.

I'm not gonna 'hang my head in shame' because I don't "buy into" this bs, nor do most other thinking,sentient beings.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

2. I'm not a fan of Adams' early work, but he's an excellent teacher about music

I've seen him conduct at an interactive concert, and he could be the Leonard Bernstein of this generation in the sense of educating general audiences about classical music.

[peacetalksforall]

3. Would any DUer who follows his music let us know if there is anything

that has offended anyone you know?

How many people know his work?

How many feel tracking him is a waste of our money?

How the heck are we going to reverse the reverse in this country?

I figure they want to go back to at least 1008.

Extra q or 2.

Do you think they select a music lover to follow him?

Do you think the tracker-spy gets to go to concerts?

[Hissyspit]

5. Adams is quite well-known.

He did "Nixon in China." "The Death of Klinghoffer" from 1991 is about the hijacking of the Achille Lauro. "Doctor Atomic" from 2005 is about the Manhattan Project.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

19. I wonder if they freaked over Dr Atomic?

From Wiki:

Doctor Atomic (2005): An opera in two acts. The libretto of Doctor Atomic by Peter Sellars draws on original source material, including personal memoirs, recorded interviews, technical manuals of nuclear physics, declassified government documents, and the poetry of Muriel Rukeyser, an American poet. It takes place in June and July 1945, mainly over the last few hours before the first atomic bomb explodes at the test site in New Mexico. Characters include Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer and his wife, Edward Teller, General Leslie Groves, and Robert Wilson.

(Rukeyser was well-know for her liberal values and opposition to the Vietnam War.)

[alfredo]

11. I find his "Short Ride in a Fast Machine" quite offensive.

Not really, I love it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1oOUJRpJW0&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSRo_fhBv8I

[Cronopio]

12. "Naive and Sentimental Music" is well, kind of naive and sentimental.

But I like that.

[alfredo]

13. This thread inspired me to take the first step into Hilary Hahn madness.

I picked up her Mozart Violin Sonatas. Natalie Zhu is fantastic.

[Cronopio]

14. She is a cutie, and she loves Bach.

Just the kind I would have fallen madly in love over when I was nineteen/twenty. (ironically enough, that would be back in the nineteen-twenties)

[alfredo]

17. I like that she doesn't seem to be a showboat, even though the publicity

shots romanticize her.

I do like this image because it is a very good photograph.

[peacetalksforall]

4. Notice its the Guardian again. In this country, being watched is a big damn secret.

[pollo poco]

6. Adams is great

And I am sure he is telling the truth. Though not as celebrated as Adams, I am a composer and performing artist with a modest reputation. I was politically active in the 2004 and 2006 elections, and made my views known via interviews with the local media. My partner, (who was a union organizer), and I were suspicious that our phone conversations were being listened to. There were a lot of unexplainable sounds on our line. We did not want to be paranoid, but it had a chilling effect. We are also openly gay. I get a certain amount of correspondence from other countries, from fans, collaborators, and relatives. In 2005, Homeland security began opening my foreign mail. It has only happened a few times, but it is very disturbing. The mail comes to you resealed with green tape, printed with an advisory that your correspondence has been opened and examined by Homeland Security. I am no longer living in the US, and trying to rebuild my career overseas. I want to come home, but I fear the airports.

I am fortunate to be a dual national, but my dear, dear partner is not. I am working hard to be able to establish myself well enough that she can come over as my employee. But I fear for her. These are hard times. I miss my old life very much.

[bitchkitty]

8. I feel for you.

I haven't traveled outside the US in a long time, and probably never will again. But I know the feeling of being far from home, and the yearning when you can't get there.

I wish I could help you. I'd have a huge group of people meeting your plane, and the media along to welcome you home. Maybe that would give them second thoughts.

Don't let them beat you with fear. You come home, honey!

[Montauk6]

7. Maybe it's because of his name...?

Perhaps the boneheads are confusing him with the guy who helped draft that infamous terrorist list of demands, aka the Declaration of Independence? :shrug:

[hedgehog]

9. Reminds me of a recent interview with James Bamford, the author of

"Shadow Factory" all about the NSA. He said the NSA is out recording so many phone calls that it is missing calls made by the actual terrorists.

[alfredo]

10. His music is terrific, no wonder he's under suspicion. intelligence and

talent is dangerous.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jw33u9qAsE

[Zuiderelle]

15. "These Patriot Acts ... clip the wings of human rights"

:patriot:

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

16. I'd like to know the specifics of what he went through.

I can't check in at the airport now without my ID being taken and being grilled.

This is fairly normal in my experience. Seeing as "random" checks now encompass about 50% of the passengers on each flight, I go through something similar most of the times when I'm flying back to the US.

[MilesColtrane]

18. It certainly isn't beyond belief that Adams is being monitored.

His "Death of Klinghoffer" was criticized by some as being sympathetic towards terrorists merely because he chose to portray them as complex characters and not simple monsters.

Considering that the F.B.I. has had files on all of these entertainers, his claim makes sense to me.

Lucy and Desi Arnaz
Josephine Baker
The Beatles
Bertolt Brecht
Charlie Chaplin
Marlene Deitrich
Walt Disney
Jane Fonda
Jean Harlow
Ernest Hemingway
John Lennon and Yoko Ono
Marilyn Monroe
Pablo Picasso
Elvis Presley
Lana Turner
Orson Welles
Andy Warhol
Paul Robeson
Frank Sinatra
John Steinbeck