The Place Where You Go to Listen: In Search of an Ecology of Music [Paperback]

John Luther Adams (Author), Alex Ross (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 28, 2009

Did Alaska create the music of John Luther Adams, or did the music create his Alaska? For the past thirty years, the vastness of Alaska has swept through the distant reaches of the composer's imagination and every corner of his compositions. In this new book Adams proposes an ideal of musical ecology, the philosophical foundation on which his largest, most complex musical work is based. This installation, also called The Place Where You Go to Listen, is a sound and light environment that gives voice to the cycles of sunlight and darkness, the phases of the moon, the seismic rhythms of the earth, and the dance of the aurora borealis. Adams describes this work as "a place for hearing the unheard music of the world around us." The book includes two seminal essays, the composer's journal telling the story of the day-to-day emergence of The Place, as well as musical notations, graphs and illustrations of geophysical phenomena.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This is an excellent read for anyone interested in art and nature, the increasingly detailed and sophisticated integration of the 'Cageian' aesthetic into visionary new music, and the creative uses of technology for grandly ambitious purposes."--Robert Carl, Fanfare

"Adams writes in clear, descriptive and accessible English, and is an engaging story-teller to boot. ... Readers will notice Adams's gift for spinning aphorisms and memorable one-liners in a natural, unpretentious manner."--Joe Distler, Gramophone

"Adams' goal was to transform the ever-changing sound waves created by natural phenomenon--the Aurora borealis, a phenomenon others have reported as having a sound component; the motion of the Earth's plates; the cycles of the Moon; and the movement of the sun--into color and music. What motivated him was his desire to reinstate the bond he believes humans once had with their natural surroundings, and to try to instill harmony again. ...Adams' Place Where You Go to Listen gives us back this profound sense of place."--Milbry C. Polk, The Explorers Journal

Review

"Only John Luther Adams, one of our most audacious and visionary artists, could compose a piece to be played by the sun and the cycling moon, by stresses and quakes in the earth's crust and fluctuations in the planet's magnetosphere! Uncanny, metamorphic, ethereal, telluric--Adams' music compels our participation, often using the most up-to-date technology to draw the human body into a deeper rapport with the elemental forces of nature. This book provides a necessary glimpse into the sensuous alchemy of his creative process." (David Abram, author of The Spell of the Sensuous )

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Product Details

• Paperback: 180 pages
• Publisher: Wesleyan (April 28, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0819569038
• ISBN-13: 978-0819569035
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 8.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #507,782 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #69 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( A ) > Adams, John

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