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RELEASE ON RECEIPT
October 21, 1998
John
Luther Adams, New Oberlin Composer, Offers World
Premiere:
In the White Silence
Media
Contact: Linda
Shockley
Wednesday, November 11
8 p.m.
Finney Chapel
"My music is profoundly influenced by the natural world and a strong sense of place. Through deep and sustained listening to the subtle resonances of the northern soundscape, I hope to explore the territory of 'sonic geography,' that region between the place and culture, between environment and imagination."
--John Luther Adams
John Luther Adams, newly-appointed associate professor of composition at the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, will offer a world premiere of In the White Silence, an elegy and a landscape, on Wednesday, November 11, 8 p.m., in Finney Chapel. In the White Silence will be performed by the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble, conducted by Tim Weiss. Also on the program will be Adams' The Time of Drumming performed by the Oberlin Percussion Group, conducted by Michael Rosen. The concert is free and open to the public.
For more than twenty years, Adams, an ardent environmentalist, has lived on a homestead in a boreal forest near Fairbanks, Alaska, where he has served as a composer-in-residence with the Anchorage Symphony, the Anchorage Opera, the Alaska Public Radio Network, and as the principal percussionist for the Fairbanks Symphony and the Arctic Chamber Orchestra.
Adams' compositions span a wide spectrum of media, including orchestral works, chamber ensembles, radio, film, television, opera, and musical theater. He has received commissions, awards and fellowships for compositional projects from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Lila Wallace Arts Partners Program, the Rockefeller Foundation, Opera America, the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, the American Music Center, Meet the Composer, the Alaska Humanities Forum, and the Alaska State Council on the Arts.
He studied music composition at the California Institute of the Arts with James Tenney and Leonard Stein, and elsewhere with Harold Budd, Morton Subotnik, and Mel Powell. As a composer, he has worked with the California E.A.R. Unit, Bang on a Can, the Paul Dresher Ensemble, The Percussion Group-Cincinnati, New Music America, The Sundance Institute, Perseverance Theater, The Children's Theater Company, and Just Strings.
Adams' recordings include, among others, Clouds of Forgetting, Clouds of Unknowing; Earth and the Great Weather; Dream in White on White, and The Far Country of Sleep.
Regarding his relocation to Oberlin, Adams said, "My home is the boreal forest of the sub-Arctic. Up there we have few species of trees: primarily birch, aspen, black and white spruce. So I'm thoroughly intrigued and a little overwhelmed by the lushness and diversity of this eastern hardwood forest. And I'm delighted by the songbirds. The stimulation of being part of Oberlin - such a vital artistic and intellectual community - is very exciting to me. I have a special interest in recent painting, and I'm especially excited about the Allen Memorial Art Museum, which is an extraordinary institution. This semester, I'll be working with Amy Kurlander at the Allen, exploring parallel developments in contemporary music and visual arts in my course titled Music, Language, and the Sounding Image. "
ALSO SLATED: Strange and Sacred Noise, Saturday, November 21, 1998, Finney Chapel; Described by Adams as "a celebration of elemental noise as a gateway to ecstatic experience." Performed by The Percussion Group-Cincinnati.
