One of America's most frequently performed composers, JOHN ADAMS likes to use form in new ways to produce his modern music, much of which is often classified as "minimalist" — a style of music that is characterized by extreme sparseness and simplicity. After graduating from Harvard with BA and MA degrees, Adams moved to California, where he taught and conducted at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. In 1978, he began working with the San Francisco Symphony, where some of his most important works, including Harmonium, Harmonielehre, Grand Pianola Music, and El Niño, were commissioned and premiered. In 1985, Adams began writing two operas, Nixon in China and The Death of Klinghoffer. Numerous dance companies, including the Dance Theater of Harlem and the New York City Ballet, have choreographed his music. Adams has recently composed Century Rolls, Naïve & Sentimental Music, and Guide to Strange Places. On September 19, 2002, Adams' On the Transmigration of Souls, remembering the lives of those lost on September 11, 2001, opened the new season of the New York Philharmonic. In 2003, John Adams became the Composer in Residence at Carnegie Hall.

DR. CLIFFORD (KIP) CRANNA is the Musical Administrator of the San Francisco Opera, where he has been a member of the administrative staff since 1979. He received his doctorate in musicology at Stanford University, where he specialized in Renaissance and Baroque music history and theory. As Musical Administrator, Cranna has overall responsibility for scheduling San Francisco Opera's seasons. He coordinates the work of the music staff, librarians, and orchestra personnel. Cranna oversees rehearsal activities and schedules, acts as liaison with conductors and directors regarding all musical matters, participates in union negotiations, and coordinates the commissioning and development of new works. These works have included Esther (1993) by Hugo Weisgall, The Dangerous Liaisons (1994) by Conrad Susa and Philip Littell, Harvey Milk (1996) by Stewart Wallace and Michael Korie, Gethsemane Park (1988) by Carman Moore and Ishmael Reed, A Streetcar Named Desire (1998) by André Previn and Philip Littell, Dead Man Walking (2000) by Jake Heggie and Terence McNally, Earthrise by Lewis Spratlan and Constance Congdon, and the upcoming Doctor Atomic (2005) by John Adams and Peter Sellars. Cranna also acts as staff musicologist and as editor-in-chief of the company's supertitles.

RICHARD RHODES is the author of twenty books, including The Making of the Atomic Bomb, which won a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, and a National Book Critics Circle Award, and Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb. He has received grants from the Ford Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. He is an affiliate of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University and has been a visiting scholar at both Harvard and MIT. His most recent book, John James Audubon: The Making of an American, was published in October 2004 by Alfred A. Knopf.

PETER SELLARS is one of the leading theater, opera, and festival directors in the world today. He is particularly well-known for his re-envisioning of classics, such as works by Mozart, Shakespeare, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and the 16th-century Chinese playwright Tang Xianzu, to engage contemporary social and political issues. Sellars is also the driving force in the creation of new works, such as John Adams' and Alice Goodman's Nixon in China and The Death of Klinghoffer, and with poet/librettist June Jordan, Adams' I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky. At twenty-six, he was made Director of the American National Theater at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. He received the MacArthur Prize Fellowship and the Erasmus Prize for his contributions to European culture. Recent projects include Tan Dun's composition Peony Pavilion; a new version of Stravinsky's The Story of a Soldier; the premiere production of Kaija Saariaho's opera L'amour de loin; and For an End to the Judgment of God / Kissing God Goodbye, a production of Antonin Artaud 's radio play with the poetry of the late June Jordan staged as a United States Department of War press conference. Between 2002 and 2004, he directed a new production of Euripides' The Children of Herakles, focusing on contemporary refugee experiences. In April 2005, Sellars, in collaboration with video artist Bill Viola and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, premiered a new production of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde at the Paris Opera.