the inspiration of quiet

There is a wonderful article by Alex Ross about the composer John Luther Adams in the 05.12.08 issue of The New Yorker. His piece, Dark Waves (available at the bottom of the article), is an extraordinary work for orchestra and electronics, simple in concept, powerful and majestic in performance. I wonder about the influence of all his quiet, alone time in Alaska, where he has lived since the late 1970s, where the treasured silence of the isolated wilderness is disappearing. Mr. Adams has been someone who kept his distance from the world beyond the quiet for years. He has no regrets about it, as he now ventures into the world at an international level and brings his finely honed and brilliant musical sensibility to new compositions. I imagine his life of intense quiet allowed him to develop his ability to listen to the surrounding landscape in a profound way; in turn, he has been able to translate his experience into music in an equally profound way. In his own words, “My music is going inexorably from being about place to becoming place.”