John Adams: Shaker Loops


On the surface, Shaker Loops is very much different from the other pieces on this program in that it is decidedly tonal. John Adams transcends the self-limitations of the compositional technique of minimalism and successfully realizes what all great artists have a knack for achieving (whether they want to admit it or not), which is the abstract representation of beauty through sound.

The piece is divided into four sections: Shaking and Trembling, Hymning Slews, Loops and Verses, and A Final Shaking. It is not only a sonic representation of the initially spontaneous and later highly ritualized ecstatic experience and dancing that is the hallmark and namesake of this sect, but it is also a visual allegory, which is achieved by the very fast bow strokes and tremolos that is required of the players throughout the piece. What, exactly, is a slew, you might ask? I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that Adams uses the second definition of the word, which is “to move obliquely or sideways, usually in an uncontrolled manner.”

John Adams writes in the program notes found at the beginning of the score that, in its original form, the piece was composed in a modular format with the “many changes among the voices being signaled by a conductor.” While ACME uses the through-composed version of this piece, we still want to achieve the improvisatory element that was inherent in the original. Shaker Loops was composed in 1978 and premiered in the same year by members of the San Francisco Conservatory’s New Music Ensemble. It is scored for three violins, viola, two celli, and bass. - Donato Cabrera