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The conductor is respected for his work on new operas: he led the world premières of Leonard Bernstein's A Quiet Place (1983), John Adams's Nixon in China (1987), and Michael Tippett's New Year (1989).
Sylvan received Grammy and Emmy awards for the role of Chou En-Lai in Nixon in China by John Adams and received five additional Grammy nominations: Fussell's Wilde (2009); Adams's The Wound-Dresser (1990), which was written for Sylvan; Fauré's L'horizon chimérique (1999); Beloved That Pilgrimage (1992); and the soundtrack for the Penny Woolcock Film of Adams' opera, The Death of Klinghoffer (2003).
The piece was composed on commission from the Milwaukee Symphony, and is described by Adams as an "out take" from Act III of the opera he was working on at the time, Nixon in China.
Recently, he appeared in San Francisco as the title (and sole) character in Erling Wold's Mordake, and as the Captain in the new chamber-orchestra version of Alban Berg's Wozzeck and for Long Beach Opera, reprising the role of Mao Tse-Tung in Nixon in China.