The pianists Robin Sutherland and Julie Steinberg, sopranos Marlene Rozofsky and Eileen Williams, and alto Elizabeth Anker performed with the orchestra.
The woodwinds remain quiet for most of the time, gently repeating the rhythmic pulses while the two pianos play waves of arpeggios.
According to Adams, "True, it was a very shaky performance, and the piece came at the end of a long concert of new works principally by serialist composers from the Columbia-Princeton school.
In the context of this otherwise rather sober repertoire, Grand Pianola Music must doubtless have seemed like a smirking truant with a dirty face, in need of a severe spanking.
Grand Pianola Music appears in the Modern Era soundtrack of the computer game Civilization IV, along with several other pieces by Adams.