Wikipedia:
John Luther Adams (born January 23, 1953 in Meridian, Mississippi) is a composer whose music is inspired by nature, especially the landscapes of Alaska where he has lived since 1978.
Biography
Like many composers of his generation, John Luther Adams did not grow up immersed in scored music. Adams began playing music as a teenager, as a drummer in rock bands. Through his experience in rock bands, friends introduced him to the music of Frank Zappa, through which he discovered Edgard Varèse and Igor Stravinsky (Kosman 2001). Similarly, Varèse's liner notes brought him to John Cage. But it was not until Adams discovered Morton Feldman that he found his calling.
Adams attended Cal Arts as an undergraduate in the early 1970s, where he studied with James Tenney and Leonard Stein, graduating in 1973 (Kosman 2001). His group of classmates includes the composers Lois V Vierk and Peter Garland.
After graduating from Cal Arts, Adams began work in environmental protection. This work first brought him to Alaska in 1975. His deep love for the location led to his permanent migration there in 1978. It continues to be the driving force in his music to this day. From 1982 to 1989, he performed as timpanist and principal percussionist with the Fairbanks Symphony Orchestra and the Arctic Chamber Orchestra (Kosman 2001).
In 2006 Adams was named one of the first United States Artists Fellows. Previously he has received awards and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Rasmuson Foundation, and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.
Adams's musical work spans many genres and media. He has composed for television, film, children's theater, voice, acoustic instruments, orchestra, and electronics.
His frequent use of static textures and subtle changes show his obvious affinities with minimalism, and his tendencies toward extended, meditative, and intuitive structures convey his true love of the music of Morton Feldman.
Lou Harrison said he is "one of the few important young American composers," while Adams himself says: "My music has always been profoundly influenced by the natural world and a strong sense of place. Through sustained listening to the subtle resonances of the northern soundscape, I hope to explore the territory of 'sonic geography' - that region between place and culture...between environment and imagination."
List of works
Green Corn Dance (1974) for percussion ensembleNight Peace (1976) for antiphonal choirs, solo soprano, harp, and percussionsongbirdsongs (1974–80) for 2 piccolos and 3 percussionStrange Birds Passing (1983) for flute choirup into the silence (1978/84) (poem by e. e. cummings) for voice and pianoHow the Sun Came to the Forest (1984) (poem by John Haines) for chorus and alto flute, English horn, percussion, harp, and stringsThe Far Country of Sleep (1988) for orchestraGiving Birth to Thunder, Sleeping With His Daughter, Coyote Builds North America (1986–90) for theatermagic song for one who wishes to live and the dead who climb up to the sky (1990) for voice and pianoDream in White On White (1992) for orchestraEarth and the Great Weather (1990–93) for theater, libretto published in the book "Inukshuk" edited by ARBOS - Company for Music & Theater, Vienna 1999, ISBN 3-85266-126-9Five Yup'ik Dances (1991–94) for solo harpCrow and Weasel (1993–94) (story by Barry Lopez) for theaterSauyatugvik: The Time of Drumming (1995) for orchestraClouds of Forgetting, Clouds of Unknowing (1991–95) for orchestraFive Athabascan Dances (1992/96) for harp and percussionStrange and Sacred Noise (1991–97) for percussion quartetMake Prayers to the Raven (1996/98) flute, violin, harp, cello, and percussionIn the White Silence (1998) for orchestraQilyaun (1998) for four bass drumsTime Undisturbed (1999) for 3 shakuhachis, 3 kotos, and shōIn a Treeless Place, Only Snow (1999) for celesta, harp, 2 vibraphones, and string quartetThe Light That Fills the World (1999–2000) for orchestraAmong Red Mountains (2001) for solo pianoThe Immeasurable Space of Tones (1998–2001) for violin, vibraphone, piano, sustaining keyboard, contrabass instrumentThe Farthest Place (2001) for violin, vibraphone, marimba, piano, double bassAfter the Light (2001) for alto flute, vibraphone, harpDark Wind (2001) for bass clarinet, vibraphone, marimba, pianoRed Arc / Blue Veil (2002) for piano, mallet percussion and processed soundsThe Mathematics of Resonant Bodies (2002) for solo percussion and processed soundsPoem of the Forgotten (2004) (poem by John Haines) for voice and pianofor Lou Harrison (2004, premiere 2005) for string quartet, string orchestra, and 2 pianos...and bells remembered... (2005) for bowed crotales, orchestra bells, chimes, vibraphone and bowed vibraphonefor Jim (rising) (2006) for three trumpets and three trombonesAlways Very Soft (2007) for percussion trioDark Waves (2007) for orchestra and electronic soundsLittle Cosmic Dust Poem (2007) for voice (medium) and pianoNunataks (Solitary Peaks) (2007) for solo pianoThree High Places (2007) for solo violinSky with Four Suns and Sky with Four Moons (2008) for four choirsthe place we began (2008)- four electro-acoustic soundscapesInuksuit (2009) for nine to ninety-nine percussionFour Thousand Holes (2011)
Awards and Recognition
2010 Nemmers Prize in Music Composition - John Luther Adams has been named the recipient of the 2010 Nemmers Prize in Music Composition. JLA was cited by the selection committee "for melding the physical and musical worlds into a unique artistic vision that transcends stylistic boundaries."The Callithumpian Consort's recording of Adams' Four Thousand Holes has been noted as one of the New Yorker Best Classical Recordings of 2011.
Writings
"The Immeasurable Space of Tones," Musicworks 91 (Spring, 2005)"Sonic Geography Alaska," Musicworks 93 (Fall, 2005)"Winter Music: Composing the North" (Wesleyan University Press, 2004)"Global Warming and Art," Orion (September - October, 2003)"Global Warming and Art," Musicworks 86 (Summer, 2003)"Winter Music. A Composer's Journal," The Best Spiritual Writing 2002 (Harper Collins, 2002)"Winter Music. A Composer's Journal," Musicworks 82 (February, 2002)"The Place Where You Go to Listen," The Book of Music and Nature (Wesleyan University Press, 2000) pp 181-182."Winter Music. A Composer's Journal," Reflections on American Music (Pendragon Press, 2000) pp 31-48."Strange and Sacred Noise," Yearbook of Soundscape Studies (Vol. 1: "Northern Soundscapes," ed. R. Murray Schafer and Helmi Järviluoma, 1998), pp 143-146."The Place Where You Go to Listen," Terra Nova, 2/3, 1997, pp 15-16."From the Ground Up," The Utne Reader, March-April, 1995, p 86."Resonance of Place, Confessions of an Out-of-Town Composer," The North American Review, January/February, 1994, pp 8-18.
Sources
Adams, John Luther. 2004. Winter Music: Composing the North. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. ISBN 0-8195-6742-6.Adams, John Luther. 2009. The Place Where You Go to Listen: In Search of an Ecology of Music. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. ISBN 978-0-8195-6903-5.Alburger, Mark. 2000. "A to Z: Interviews with John Luther Adams". 21st-Century Music 7, no. 1 (January): 1–12.Feisst, Sabine. 2001. "Klanggeographie—Klanggeometrie: Der US-amerikanische Komponist John Luther Adams". MusikTexte: Zeitschrift für Neue Musik, no. 91 (November): 4–13.Gann, Kyle. 1997. American Music in the Twentieth Century. New York: Schirmer Books; London: Prentice Hall International. ISBN 0-02-864655-X.Kosman, Joshua. 2001. "Adams, John Luther". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.Morris, Mitchell. 1999. "Ecotopian Sounds, or, The Music of Luther Adams and Strong Environmentalism". In Crosscurrents and Counterpoints: Offerings in Honor of Bengt Hambræus at 70, edited by Per F. Broman, Nora Engebretsen, and Bo Alphonce. 129–41. Skrifter från Musikvetenskapliga Avdelningen 51. Göteborg: Göteborgs Universitet. ISBN 91-85974-45-5.Ross, Alex. 2008. "Song of the Earth: A Composer Takes Inspiration from the Arctic". The New Yorker 84, no. 13 (May 12): 76–81.Young, Gayle. 1998. "Sonic Geography of the Arctic: An Interview with John Luther Adams". Musicworks: Explorations in Sound, no. 70 (Spring): 38–43.
