Slonimsky's Earbox

Slonimsky's Earbox is an orchestral work written in 1996 by American composer John Adams. The piece is based on Igor Stravinsky's work, Le chant du rossignol, in which Adams was drawn to the modal harmonies that Stravinsky employed, and is a step toward integrating standard minimalist techniques with a more complex contrapuntal style. It is approximately 13 minutes in length.

Adams wrote the piece in tribute to his friend, the Russian-American composer, critic and musicologist Nicolas Slonimsky, who had recently died. Slonimsky, the long-time editor of Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, was the author of The Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns, a book which Adams has made frequent use of. Adams describes Slonimsky as "a character of mind-boggling ability", and says that Slonimsky's Earbox "memorializes his wit and hyper-energetic activity."