In the score program notes, Adams wrote: Like Ives, I grew up in rural New England, in Woodstock, Vermont and East Concord, New Hampshire.
Although it was surely from my singing actress mother that I inherited most of my talent, my father's patient and analytic approach to teaching gave me the security of a sound musicianship.
[4]He continued: My father, like Ives, was drawn to the contemplative philosophy of the New England trancendentalists, particularly Thoreau, whose modesty, economy and fierce independence he admired, even when he could not always emulate it.
Both fathers seem to have shared a certain dreaminess that expressed itself in speculating about art and, in the case of Carl Adams, took the form of several failed attempts to establish himself as a painter after an some [sic] earlier experience playing jazz clarinet and saxophone.
Reviewing the world premiere, Joshua Kosman of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote, "My Father Knew Charles Ives, a funny, rueful and heartbreakingly beautiful musical memoir, melds Adams' personal history with that of American concert music in one easy and daring artistic stroke..." He added, "This is a capacious and detailed 30-minute orchestral essay by our nation's most important composer working at the height of his creative powers.
Full of exuberant humor and tender reverie, written with an unparalleled mastery of orchestral texture and instrumental color, it solidifies Adams' claim as the most important American composer of his generation.
"[5] Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times similarly described it as a "deeply affectionate new score," but also noted, "My Father Knew Charles Ives makes an effort to retain that optimism, and it seems that the only way Adams can now do this is through nostalgia, for his childhood, his musical heritage, his own earlier work.