Press Quotes

“More impressive, the increasingly acclaimed composer John Luther Adams (recently the subject of a profile in the New Yorker) was represented by a fascinating short work, "The Light Within." Inspired by James Turrell's ethereal installation art, Adams' thick and undulating wall-of-sound approach suggests a musical corollary to Turrell's sublime manipulations of time, space and color.” -
Josef Woodard, Special to The Times May 16, 2008

“Whenever I hear this music I am mesmerized by something I can only call truth.” – Barry Lopez

“…shimmering, vast, luminous, ecstatic…” – Kyle Gann

“…a distinctive creative voice…a body of work that bespeaks vast space, purity, and abstraction of experience, rigorous process, and an unobstructive mysticism.”  – Robert Carl, Fanfare

“Out of many eligible composers of his generation, John Luther Adams is the greatest proponent of the American experimental tradition, a lineage that includes Ives, Cowell, Varese, Partch, Nancarrow, Cage and Tenney.” –      Christian Hertzog, Sequenza 21

“The environment in John Luther Adams’ world asserts itself in terms of deep and immutable simplicity. Its dispassionate and sometimes terrible force is awe-inspiring, but it is the fragility of the human position within this environment that gives us poetry.” –      Steven Schick, The Percussionist’s Art

“Adams’ music is never less than spellbinding.” – Jerry Bowles, Sequenza 21r