The Light That Fills the World (1999-2000)
for orchestra - (picc, 2 flts, 3 obs, 3 clnts, 2bsns, contrabsn, 4 hns, 2 tpts, 2 tbns, tba, timp, susp cymb, vibr, mar, strings).

13:00

"...there are no sharply-defined lines - only slowly-changing colors on a timeless white field... rather than moving on a journey through a musical landscape, the experience of listening is more like sitting in the same place as the wind and weather, the light and shadows slowly change... The title is borrowed from an Inuit song which sings of the close relationship between beauty and terror, risk and revelation."

In the White Silence (1998)
for celesta, harp, string quartet, 2 vibraphones, and string quintet or orchestra.

75:00

"In the White Silence evokes an enveloping musical presence equivalent to that of a vast tundra landscape. But I want to go beyond landscape painting with tones, beyond language, metaphor and visual images... I no longer want to be outside the music listening to it as an object apart. I want to inhabit the music, to be fully present and listening in that immeasurable space which Malevich called 'a desert of pure feeling'"

Clouds of Forgetting, Clouds of Unknowing  (1991-95)
for chamber orchestra (2 flts - dbl. piccs, 2 clnts - 2nd dbl. bass, 2 hns, tpt, bass tbn, 2 perc, cel, pno, 2 vlns, vla, vlc, cb)

65:00

Recorded on New World Records (80500).

"...a ruminative tapestry of arresting beauty... a vast space filled with shimmering textures and tintinnabulary outbursts."

"...hypnotic, mesmerizing. You felt as if should you have to move, you'd best do it in slow motion, so as to not break the fragile bubble surrounding you. Shift languidly, as if under water, so that you do not risk disturbing the surface while you listen to eerie clang and muffled beat of water slapping at boats moored... somewhere."

Sauyatugvik: The Time of Drumming  (1995)
for orchestra (picc, 2 flts, 3 obs, 3 clnts, 2 bsns, cbsn, 4 hns, 3 tpts, 2 tbns, bass tbn, tba, timp, 4 perc, 2 pnos, strings)

11:00

Commissioned by the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra.

"The Time of Drumming demands that an entire orchestra pound the sound into the back wall of the hall... For inspiration, Adams turned to the Yup'ik drumming he has admired since moving to Alaska twenty years ago, and cross-fertilized it with the brute orchestral force of Stravinsky's 'Rite of Spring'".

"engrossing and irresistible"

Dream in White On White  (1992)
string quartet, harp (or piano) and strings (minimum 2-2-2-2-1)

16:45

Recorded on New Albion Records (NA061).

"...austere, Nordic textures...landscape-obsessed forms...rich, indistinct sonorities...images you can't forget."

"...contemplative...glacially slow...a frigid counterpart to the warm and popular Symphony No. 3 of Gorecki."

The Far Country of Sleep  (1988)
for orchestra (2 flts, 2 obs, 2 clnts, 2 bsns, 2 hns, 2 tpts, tbn, 2 perc/harp/strings - minimum 6-6-4-4-2).

15:45

Commissioned by the Arctic Chamber Orchestra
(Fairbanks, AK).

Recorded on New Albion Records (NA061).

"...a ravishingly beautiful landscape..."

"...wondrous soundscapes of place and the imagination. I can't remember when a new piece of music has been as thought-provoking as The Far Country of Sleep."

All works available from:


  P.O. Box 81382
  Fairbanks, AK 99708
  907.455.6235