Composer John C. Adams ’69 is notoriously elusive. He splits his time between his home in Berkeley and a log cabin called “Busy Ridge” in a California forest.

But after receiving the 2003 Pulitzer Prize in music this Tuesday, Adams may find it harder to eschew the public eye.

The Pulitzer-winning work, “On the Transmigration of Souls,” was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic to commemorate the victims of Sept. 11. It offers a mix of contemporary commentary and classical musicianship typical of Adams.

A traditional orchestra accompanies voices that read names of victims, fragments of telephone messages, missing-persons ads and newscasts.

The Pulitzer punctuates what has already proven a triumphant year for the composer. April marks a month-long celebration at the Lincoln Center in honor of his works, including his 1991 opera, The Death of Klinghoffer, which will be made into a movie for the BBC this month.

And in September, he will succeed Pierre Boulez as Carnegie Hall’s Richard and Barbara Debs Composer Chair.

Portrait of the Artist as an Undergrad

Adams’ music is influenced by figures as disparate as Duke Ellington and Philip Glass and self-consciously rooted in the American vernacular.

This devotion to the popular—and to the place of “low-art” and pop-culture in the concert hall—was evident thirty years ago, during Adams’ studies at Harvard.

“He was an independent soul, even way back then,” says Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra Director James Yannatos, who worked with Adams during his time at Harvard.

During his college years, reviewers for The Crimson called Adams a musician whose “pyrotechnics…must be the envy of all clarinetists” and “a gifted conductor.”

Adams, who played clarinet, performed as a soloist under Yannatos’ direction at several concerts—including a 1967 performance at Carnegie Hall, where Adams is now composer-in-residence. Adams also conducted the Bach Society Orchestra from 1967-68, as well as a Leverett House Opera production of The Marriage of Figaro.

Though better known in Harvard’s music community as a performer, Adams’ focus in the classroom was on composition. He studied under Leon Kirchner, but rebelled against the academic model of composition that dominated Harvard’s music department—atonality and the twelve-tone method of Schoenberg.

Instead, Adams embraced minimalism and composers like John Cage. His senior thesis, a song-cycle for soprano and chamber ensemble, was based on a series of “psychedelic” texts written by a friend.

“He hasn’t necessarily followed what was de rigueur in the University,” says Yannatos. “He thought twelve-tone music was too academic, too removed from popular tastes and understanding. I think he tried to find a more American base for his music.”