Kazuki conducts Harmonium review – John Adams’ wild ride centres an elegant showcase of US composers

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Adams’ maximal minimalism was framed by Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man and Joan Tower’s parallel feminist statement, with Florence Price’s The Heart of A Woman adding a Broadway flourish

Orchestras have thrown themselves on this year’s anniversary of American Independence (or “Freedom 250” as the marketers are catchily dubbing it) with an eagerness born of a repertoire of big names and broad appeal. A year of Gershwin, Barber and Bernstein, Adams and Glass? Full halls all round. You can even throw in John Williams and Duke Ellington (just go easy on the Carter and Crumb) and you’re on to a winner. Just ask Kazuki Yamada and the audience of Friday night’s generously filled Symphony Hall.

Harmonium – John Adams’ 1980 landmark experiment in maximal minimalism – was the advertised centrepiece (and will travel down to the Proms with the CBSO later this month), but the framing was the curiosity here: conceived by Yamada as two facing musical panels.