August 17 PA Arts Sunday - John Luther Adams Explains His Wondrous Art

It happened again last weekend in Homer.

It happens every year or so, after a performance of one of my works. Somebody at a reception or some other event will come up to me and start comparing the music of John Luther Adams to mine to John's disadvantage. The next thing that usually happens is that the commenter get a big, whopping surprise, as I explain how I feel about the art of John Luther Adams.

Back in May, in an article at PA, I wrote:

His series of compositions, and the commercial CDs of performances of them, have since marked John Luther Adams in my mind as Alaska's most powerful living artist. He's probably become a more important national and international figure, than an Alaskan one, though. Although John has long been appreciated in the Fairbanks arts community in which his art matured, Anchorage performers and listeners have had difficulty approaching John's sound palettes with open ears and minds.

John has posted a YouTube recently, that explains what he is about better than I possibly can:



I especially like his statement, "I'm not interested in telling you a story; I'm not interested any longer in painting a picture of a specific place; I want to invite you to pay attention to this miraculous world in which we live."



image of John Luther Adams courtesy of the Fairbanks Goldpanners