Phrygian Gates

Phrygian Gates is a piano piece written by minimalist composer John Adams in 1977–1978. The piece, together with its smaller companion China Gates, written for the pianist Sarah Cahill, is considered by Adams to be his "opus one".^[1] They are, according to his own claims, his first compositions consisting of a coherent personal style. It was commissioned and written for the pianist Mack McCray,^[1] and first performed by him in the Hellman Hall, San Francisco on March 17, 1978.^[2] The work was funded by a group of the board of trustees of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.^{[citation needed]}