John Luther Adams at Pytheas ~ Contemporary, Modern, New, Non-Pop Art Music Composers, Ensembles & Resources

John Luther Adams (1953- )

John Luther Adams is a composer whose music embodies the landscapes of Alaska, his home since 1978. 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 the liner notes of a Zappa album, he discovered Edgard Varèse. 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. 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. 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 belie 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."

- ModernClassical.com

COMPOSITIONS                                         John Luther Adams Links ~ ~ ~   Works by Genre    ~ ~ ~   JL Adams on JL Adams
Green Corn Dance, 6 percussionists (1974)
Night Peace, soprano, antiphonal choirs, harp and percussion (1976)
songbirdsongs, 2 piccolos and 3 percussion (1974-80)
A Northern Suite (5 mvts), orchestra (1979-80; rev. 2004)
Strange Birds Passing, flute choir (1983)
up into the silence, voice and piano (1978/84) [text: e. e. cummings]
Forest Without Leaves, soloists, chorus and chamber orchestra (1984) [text: John Haines]
    - Selections from "Forest Without Leaves", soloists, chorus and chamber orchestra (1984) [text: John Haines]
How the Sun Came to the Forest, chorus, alto flute, English horn, percussion, harp and strings (1984) [text: John Haines]
The Far Country of Sleep, orchestra (1988)
Giving Birth to Thunder, Sleeping with His Daughter: Coyote Builds North America, theater work (1986-90) [text: Barry Lopez]
    - Five Percussion Quartets from "Coyote Builds North America", 4 percussionists (1990)
magic song for one who wishes to live and the dead who climb up to the sky, voice and piano (1990)
Dream in White On White, string quartet, harp (or piano) and string ensemble/orchestra (1992)
Earth and the Great Weather, a sonic geography of the Arctic, theater work (1990-93)
    - Three Drum Quartets from "Earth and the Great Weather", 4 percussionists and optional tape (1993)
Five Yup'ik Dances, harp (1991-94)
Crow and Weasel, picc/bass cl (1 player), 4 percussionists, celesta, harp and string quintet (1993-94) [story by Barry Lopez]
Sauyatugvik: The Time of Drumming, orchestra (1995)
    - Sauyatugvik: The Time of Drumming, 2 pianos, timpani and 4 percussionists (1996)
Clouds of Forgetting, Clouds of Unknowing, chamber orchestra (1991-95)
Five Athabascan Dances, harp and percussion (1992/96)
Strange and Sacred Noise (6 pieces), 4 percussionists (1991-97)
Make Prayers to the Raven, flute, violin, harp (or piano), cello and percussion (1996/98)
In the White Silence, celesta, harp, string quartet, 2 vibraphones and string quintet/or orchestra (1998)
Qilyaun, 4 bass drums; or bass drum with digital delay (1998)
Time Undisturbed, picc, fl, alto fl (or 3 shakuhachis), 3 harps (celesta, pf & hp) (or 3 kotos), cello & sustaining kybd (or sho) (1999)
In a Treeless Place, Only Snow, celesta, harp (or piano), 2 vibraphones, string quartet (1999)
The Light That Fills the World, orchestra (1999-2000)
Among Red Mountains, piano (2001)
The Immeasurable Space of Tones, violin, vibraphone, piano, sustaining keyboard and contrabass instrument (1998-2001)
The Farthest Place, violin, vibraphone, marimba, piano and doublebass (2001)
The Light That Fills the World, violin, vibraphone, marimba, sustaining kybd, contrabass instr (Chamber Version) (rev. 2001)
After the Light, alto flute, vibraphone and harp (2001)
Dark Wind, bass clarinet, vibraphone, marimba and piano (2001)
Red Arc / Blue Veil, piano, mallet percussion and processed sounds (2002)
The Mathematics of Resonant Bodies solo percussion and processed sounds (2002)
Poem of the Forgotten, voice and piano (2004) [text: John Haines]
for Lou Harrison, string quartet, 2 pianos and string ensemble/orchestra (2003)
…and bells remembered… , bowed crotales, orchestra bells, chimes, vibraphone and bowed vibraphone (2005)
Vesper, [soundscape?] (2005)
Veils, three soundscapes, to be heard successively or concurrently (2005)
The Place Where You Go to Listen, a continuous sound and light environment (2004-06)
for Jim (rising), 3 trumpets and 3 trombones (2006)
Always Very Soft, 3 percussionists (2007)
The Light Within, alto flute, bass clarinet, vibraphone/crotales, piano, violin, cello and electronic sounds (2007)
    - The Light Within, orchestra and electronic sounds (2010)
Dark Waves, orchestra and electronic sounds; or 2 pianos and electronic sounds (2007)
Little Cosmic Dust Poem, voice and piano (2007) [text: John Haines]
Nunataks (Solitary Peaks), piano (2007)
Three High Places (in memory of Gordon Wright), violin (2007)
Sky with Four Suns and Sky with Four Moons, 4 choirs (2008)
the place we began, four electro-acoustic soundscapes (2008)
Inuksuit, 9 to 99 percussion (2009)

WORKS BY GENRE                               John Luther Adams Links    ~ ~ ~   JL Adams on JL Adams   ~ top of page ~
Dramatic/Theater
Giving Birth to Thunder, Sleeping with His Daughter: Coyote Builds North America, theater work, 2 cl (Eb & bass), vln, cb,
       4 percussionists and storyteller (1986-90) [text: Barry Lopez]
Earth and the Great Weather, a sonic geography of the Arctic, theater work, vln, va, vc, cb, digital delay, 4 singers (SSAB),
       4 percussion, 4 speaking voices and natural sounds (1990-93)
            - The Place Where You Go To Listen
            - Drums of Winter
            - Pointed Mountains Scattered All Around
            - The Circle of Suns and Moons
            - The Circle of Winds
            - Deep and Distant Thunder
            - River With No Willows
            - One That Stays All Winter
            - Drums of Fire, Drums of Stone
            - Where the Waves Splash, Hitting Again and Again
Crow and Weasel, picc/bass cl (1 player), 4 percussionists, celesta, harp and string quintet (1993-94) [story by Barry Lopez]

Orchestra or Large Ensemble
A Northern Suite (5 mvts), orchestra (1979-80; rev. 2004)
    - Blue ice, crystal air
    - Mountains without end
    - Cloud forest
    - Rivers of ice
    - Valley of frozen fire
The Far Country of Sleep, orchestra (1988)
Dream in White On White, string quartet, harp (or piano) and string ensemble/orchestra (1992)
Sauyatugvik: The Time of Drumming, orchestra (1995) [arr. for 2 pianos, timpani and 4 percussionists, 1996]
Clouds of Forgetting, Clouds of Unknowing, chamber orchestra (1991-95)
In the White Silence, celesta, harp, string quartet, 2 vibraphones and string quintet/or orchestra (1998)
The Light That Fills the World, orchestra (1999-2000)
for Lou Harrison, string quartet, 2 pianos and string ensemble/orchestra (2003)
Dark Waves, orchestra and electronic sounds (2007) [also for 2 pianos and electronic sounds]
The Light Within, orchestra and electronic sounds (2010) [from chamber work, 2007]

Chorus w/Orchestra
Forest Without Leaves, soloists, chorus and chamber orchestra (1984) [text: John Haines]
    - Selections from "Forest Without Leaves", soloists, chorus and chamber orchestra (1984) [text: John Haines]

Choral
Night Peace, soprano, antiphonal choirs, harp and percussion (1976)
How the Sun Came to the Forest, chorus, alto flute, English horn, percussion, harp and strings (1984) [text: John Haines]
Sky with Four Suns and Sky with Four Moons, 4 choirs (2008)

Chamber
songbirdsongs, 2 piccolos and 3 percussion (1974-80)
Strange Birds Passing, flute choir (1983)
Dream in White On White, string quartet, harp (or piano) and string ensemble/orchestra (1992)
Five Athabascan Dances, harp and percussion (1992/96)
Make Prayers to the Raven, flute, violin, harp (or piano), cello and percussion (1996/98)
In the White Silence, celesta, harp, string quartet, 2 vibraphones and string quintet/or orchestra (1998)
Time Undisturbed, picc, fl, alto fl (or 3 shakuhachis), 3 harps (celesta, pf & hp) (or 3 kotos), cello & sustaining kybd (or sho) (1999)
In a Treeless Place, Only Snow, celesta, harp (or piano), 2 vibraphones and string quartet (1999)
The Light That Fills the World, violin, vibraphone, marimba, sustaining kybd and contrabass instr (Chamber Version) (rev. 2001)
The Immeasurable Space of Tones, violin, vibraphone, piano, sustaining keyboard and contrabass instrument (1998-2001)
The Farthest Place, violin, vibraphone, marimba, piano and doublebass (2001)
After the Light, alto flute, vibraphone and harp (2001)
Dark Wind, bass clarinet, vibraphone, marimba and piano (2001)
Red Arc / Blue Veil, piano, mallet percussion and processed sounds (2002)
for Jim (rising), 3 trumpets and 3 trombones (2006)
The Light Within, alto flute, bass clarinet, vibraphone/crotales, piano, violin, cello & electronic sounds (2007) [arr. for orch, 2010]

Percussion
Green Corn Dance, 6 percussionists (1974)
Five Percussion Quartets from "Coyote Builds North America", 4 percussionists (1990)
    - Invocation
    - Consecration
    - Giving birth to thunder
    - Playing with fire
    - Always coming home
Three Drum Quartets from "Earth and the Great Weather", 4 percussionists and optional tape (1993)
    - Drums of Winter
    - Drums of Fire
    - Drums of Stone
Sauyatugvik: The Time of Drumming, 2 pianos, timpani and 4 percussionists (1996) [from orchestral work, 1995]
Strange and Sacred Noise (6 pieces), 4 percussionists (1991-97)
    - Dust into dust
    - Solitary and time-breaking waves
    - Velocities crossing in phaps space
    - Triadic iteration lattices
    - Clusters on a quadrilateral grid
    - And dust rising
Qilyaun, 4 bass drums; or bass drum with digital delay (1998)
The Mathematics of Resonant Bodies solo percussion and processed sounds (2002)
…and bells remembered… , bowed crotales, orchestra bells, chimes, vibraphone and bowed vibraphone (2005)
Always Very Soft, 3 percussionists (2007)
Inuksuit, 9 to 99 percussion (2009)

Solo Instrument
Five Yup'ik Dances, harp (1991-94)
Three High Places (in memory of Gordon Wright), violin (2007)
    - Above sunset pass
    - The wind at Maclaren Summit
    - Looking toward hope

Piano
Among Red Mountains, piano (2001)
Dark Waves, 2 pianos and electronic sounds (2007) [also for orchestra and electronic sounds]
Nunataks (Solitary Peaks), piano (2007)

Vocal
up into the silence, voice and piano (1978/84) [text: e. e. cummings]
magic song for one who wishes to live and the dead who climb up to the sky, voice and piano (1990)
Poem of the Forgotten, voice and piano (2004) [text: John Haines]
Little Cosmic Dust Poem, voice and piano (2007) [text: John Haines]

Electronic
Vesper, [soundscape?] (2005)
Veils, three soundscapes, to be heard successively or concurrently (2005)
    - Falling Veil
    - Crossing Veil
    - Rising Veil
The Place Where You Go to Listen, a continuous sound and light environment (2004-06)
the place we began, four electro-acoustic soundscapes (2008)
    - in a room
    - at the still point
    - in the rain
    - the place we began

JOHN LUTHER ADAMS LINKS                                    Works by Genre    ~ ~ ~   JL Adams on JL Adams    ~ top of page ~
Erasing The Lines (Kyle Gann, The Village Voice)
In Conversation with John Luther Adams (Molly Sheridan, NewMusicBox)
John Luther Adams, Finding a Way to Get Lost (James Wells, BMI.com)
John Luther Adams: The Music of a True Place (Molly Sheridan, NewMusicBox)
John Luther Adams wins 2010 Nemmers Prize in Music Composition (NewMusicBox)
John Luther Adams’s "Inuksuit" (Alex Ross, The New Yorker)
Song of the Earth - A Composer Takes Inspiration from the Arctic (Alex Ross, The New Yorker)

Composer's website . . .   contact John Luther Adams: jla(at)alaska(dot)net

John Luther Adams @ Wikipedia
John Luther Adams @ Alaska Music
John Luther Adams @ American Music Center
John Luther Adams @ Arcane Candy
John Luther Adams @ Boulder Pavement
John Luther Adams @ CDeMusic
John Luther Adams @ Classical Archives
John Luther Adams @ Classical Composers Database
John Luther Adams @ Classical Net (via google)
John Luther Adams @ ClassicsToday
John Luther Adams @ CrossSounds
John Luther Adams @ Diapason Gallery
John Luther Adams @ DRAM Online    also    here
John Luther Adams @ Dusted
John Luther Adams @ The Echoes Blog
John Luther Adams @ Ethan Ham
John Luther Adams @ Facebook
John Luther Adams @ Foundation for Contemporary Arts
John Luther Adams @ IMDb (Internet Movie Database)
John Luther Adams @ InstantEncore
John Luther Adams @ Kalvos & Damian
John Luther Adams @ LinkedIn
John Luther Adams @ Mode Records
John Luther Adams @ Modern Classical
John Luther Adams @ Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
John Luther Adams @ MusicWeb International
John Luther Adams @ Naxos
John Luther Adams @ New Albion Records
John Luther Adams @ New American Radio
John Luther Adams @ New World Records
John Luther Adams @ The New York Times
John Luther Adams @ The New Yorker
John Luther Adams @ North Star Community Foundation
John Luther Adams @ Oberlin College
John Luther Adams @ Other Minds
John Luther Adams @ Rasmuson Foundation
John Luther Adams @ Piero Scaruffi
John Luther Adams @ United States Artisits

Publisher
John Luther Adams @ Composer's website
John Luther Adams @ Theodore Front Musical Literature
John Luther Adams @ Taiga Press

Streaming Audio
John Luther Adams @ Composer's website (check under individual works listings)
John Luther Adams @ Alaska Music
John Luther Adams @ Classical Archives
John Luther Adams @ Dusted
John Luther Adams @ The Echoes Blog
John Luther Adams @ Gregory Wooden Brown/Vancouver Chamber Choir
John Luther Adams @ Internet Archive/radiOM
John Luther Adams @ last.fm
John Luther Adams @ Minnesota Public Radio/The Composer's Voice
John Luther Adams @ Music Matters
John Luther Adams @ NPRmusic
John Luther Adams @ PRX (Public Radio Exchange)
John Luther Adams @ Rhapsody.com
John Luther Adams @ Timothy Adres
John Luther Adams @ WFMT/Critical Thinking
John Luther Adams @ WQXR/Q2 Live Concerts

Recordings
John Luther Adams @ Composer's website
John Luther Adams @ ArkivMusic
John Luther Adams @ CDeMusic
John Luther Adams @ ClassicsOnline
John Luther Adams @ Cold Blue Music
John Luther Adams @ Discogs
John Luther Adams @ Mode Records
John Luther Adams @ New Albion Records

Video
John Luther Adams @ YouTube
John Luther Adams @ Google Video
John Luther Adams @ Vimeo
John Luther Adams @ NewMusicBox/The Music of a True Place
John Luther Adams @ The New Yorker    also    here
John Luther Adams @ Pick-Staiger Concert Hall/A Conversation with John Luther Adams and Alex Ross

                                                                                                                                                                                                     ~ top of page ~
John Luther Adams on John Luther Adams: Inuksuit, An Introduction (VIDEO)

John Luther Adams on John Luther Adams: A Conversation w/Alex Ross (VIDEO)

Composers Speak on the Web at Pytheas
~ click on composer picture to listen ~

John Luther Adams on John Luther Adams: The Music of a True Place/NewMusicBox (VIDEO)

Composers Speak on the Web at Pytheas
~ click on composer picture to listen ~

John Luther Adams on John Luther Adams: Critical Thinking/WFMT (streaming audio)

Composers Speak on the Web at Pytheas
~ click on composer picture to listen ~

John Luther Adams on John Luther Adams: The Composers Voice/MPR (streaming audio)

Composers Speak on the Web at Pytheas
~ click on composer picture to listen ~

. . . and check out more Composers Speak on the Web at Pytheas

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Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music

John Luther Adams (1953- )