Noise on Mode - Strange and Sacred Noise, a "celebration of noise as a gateway to ecstatic experience" - featuring Percussion Group Cincinnati - will be released on CD and surround-sound DVD on Mode Records, in fall 2001. Silence in Virginia - The second performance of In the White Silence, a concert-length elegy and paean to the Arctic, is scheduled for May 2002, at the Virginia International Arts Festival (Norfolk, VA). JoAnn Falletta will lead the Apollo Chamber Orchestra. White Silence will also be recorded for release on New World Records. The Light - at Home and On the Road On May 4 and 5, 2001, the Paul Dresher Electric Chamber Ensemble gave the first performances of a revised version of The Light That Fills the World at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. The Light was commissioned by the Dresher Ensemble in 1999, and the group plans to perform the piece on its tours in the 2001-2002 season. On December 2 and 3, 2000 - in Healy and Fairbanks, Alaska - Gordon Wright conducted the Fairbanks Symphony in the first performances of the orchestral version of The Light That Fills the World. A Treeless Place in NYC - On March 30, 2001, the Flux Quartet and friends performed In a Treeless Place, Only Snow at the Church of the Ascension in New York City, as part of a concert hosted by Ellen Kushner of the public radio series "Sound and Spirit." Writing in The Village Voice, Kyle Gann observed: "In a Treeless Place... built up repeating melodies into a featureless continuum whose only structural differentiation was that it would occasionally slim down to a solo instrument before swelling back up again... Adams's piece beautifully achieved the post-Cage aim of encouraging a spiritual attitude in the listener..." Coyote in Washington - A new production of Coyote Builds North America was presented at Arena Stage in Washington, DC, from March 9 - April 15, 2001. Washington Post writer Nelson Pressley heard: "...a kind of primal boogie driven by the airy violin and clarinet and powerfully throbbing double bass and drums of Adams's score... notes of yearning, loss and wonder..." Earth in London - A new production of Earth and the Great Weather was presented at the Almeida Opera Festival (London), July 6-9, 2000. For the occasion, JLA composed new choruses for the "Arctic Litanies" sections of the work, which were sung by the British vocal group Synergy. "...John Luther Adams' powerful Earth and the Great Weather was less a traditional opera, more an environment in which to contemplate the fragile sounds the composer created and the bleak, beautiful landscapes he evoked... Vocal quartet Synergy gave a restrained but potent performance verging on ritual enactment." - BBC Music Magazine On July 1, musicologist Sabine Feisst will present The Sonic Geography of John Luther Adams, a major paper about JLA's music at the Second Biennial International Conference on Twentieth-Century Music, at the University of London. JLA and His Music are the subject of another extensive article by Sabine Feisst, which will appear in Musik Texte in fall 2001. Writings by JLA appear in two recent books: The Book of Music and Nature: an Anthology of Sounds, Words, Thoughts (Wesleyan University Press) and Reflections on American Music (Pendragon Press). An Interview with JLA recently appeared in the new music webzine Sequenza 21 . JLA was also featured in the September 2000 issue of The Wire. Currently, JLA is at work on a permanent sound and light installation for the University of Alaska Museum, a major collaboration with percussionist Steven Schick, and Winter Music - a collection of his essays, journals and other writings, from 1974-2001. John Luther Adams's email: jla@alaska.net Bio | New | Recordings | Interview | Writings Works | Calendar | Web Site Credits | Home