John Luther Adams: Bio

or the past twenty-five years, composer John Luther Adams has made his home in the boreal forest near Fairbanks, Alaska. From there, he has created a unique musical world, grounded in the elemental landscapes and indigenous cultures of the North.

Adams' music embraces a wide range of media - including works for orchestra, chamber ensembles, radio, film, television, and theater - and is recorded on New World, New Albion, Opus One, Owl and Centaur. His latest recording - Strange and Sacred Noise - featuring Percussion Group Cincinnati, will be released on surround-sound DVD and CD by Mode Records, in fall 2001.

As a composer in the far North,
I hope to make music that belongs here, somewhat like the plants
and the birds...music that somehow resonates with all this space and
silence, cold and stone, wind, fire, and ice.

Recent performances of JLA's music have included productions at the Almeida Opera Festival (London) and Arena Stage (Washington, DC), and premieres of new works commissioned by The Paul Dresher Ensemble (San Francisco), The Third Angle New Music Ensemble (Portland, OR), and The Monophony Consort (Yokohama, Japan). In the past, he has worked with many prominent performers and presenters - including Bang On A Can, New Music America, the Sundance Institute, the California E.A.R. Unit, Perseverance Theater, The Children's Theater Company, and Present Music.

Adams studied composition with James Tenney and Leonard Stein at the California Institute of the Arts, where his other teachers included Harold Budd, Mel Powell, and Morton Subotnik. He has received awards and fellowships from Meet the Composer, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Lila Wallace Arts Partners Program, the Rockefeller Foundation, Opera America, and the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts.

Like many of my generation of middle class
North Americans, I grew up in several different places, amid relatively homogenous suburban
surroundings. In my twenties, I sought and found my spiritual home in Alaska, and made a deep
commitment to pursue my life's work here.

Adams has served as composer in residence with the Anchorage Symphony, Fairbanks Symphony, Arctic Chamber Orchestra, Anchorage Opera, and the Alaska Public Radio Network, and has taught at the University of Alaska, Bennington College, and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. He has also worked as executive director of the Northern Alaska Environmental Center, as a producer and music director for public radio station KUAC-FM, and as timpanist and principal percussionist for the Fairbanks Symphony and the Arctic Chamber Orchestra. Currently he serves as president of the American Music Center.

Articles about Adams and his music appear in The New Grove Dictionary of Music, Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Music and Musicians, American Music in the 20th Century (G. Schirmer), Music in the United States (Prentice Hall), and The Avant Music Guide (Japan).

John Luther Adams's email: jla@alaska.net