THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, February 26, 1996 TAG: 9602240060
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY RICKEY WRIGHT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
DISCUSSING TONIGHT'S world premiere of his chamber work ``Clouds of Forgetting, Clouds of Unknowing,'' John Luther Adams is suddenly distracted.
``There's an elephant outside my window,'' the composer says over the phone from his Norfolk hotel room, not far from where Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey are encamped. He sounds a little awed. ``You don't see things like that in Alaska.''
He'd know. A Mississippi native, Adams has spent the past two decades enjoying a Northern exposure. A widely praised figure in contemporary music, his work is deeply informed by the landscape around him.
``Clouds,'' which Adams wrote over six years, will be performed by the Virginia Symphony's Apollo ensemble, conducted by Symphony musical director JoAnn Falletta, at ODU's Chandler Recital Hall. The group will also record the piece in the hall later this week, for release on New World Records.
Adams has crossed paths with Falletta and Apollo before. Their recording of his ``Dream in White on White'' is included on ``The Far Country,'' a 1993 New Albion CD. ``Clouds'' was written with them in mind.
``She is a composer's dream come true,'' Adams says of Falletta. ``Her principal concern is to serve the music. There's none of the baloney you get with so many conductors. She does not buy into the maestra mystique. I think (her approach) is especially well-suited to my music because the way to approach it is to just play the music and not embellish it a lot.''
Of ``Clouds,'' Adams says, ``It's an enormous work; it's an hour and 15 minutes in one movement. It's divided into many subsections, but it's one movement.''
It both resembles and departs from the style of his earlier compositions, he says.
``It is like my other work in that it is very slow and very spacious, and I hope very meditative. It differs in that it's a very dissonant piece. This piece is very dense, very dark. I think of it as night music, as winter music. At the same time, I hope there is clarity to the darkness, as there is in Alaska.''
However, ``Clouds'' is less directly inspired by Alaskan nature.
``This piece didn't have those associations, but I think that feel is still there,'' Adams says. ``I think it's unavoidable for me. Having lived in the north for 20 years or more now, I measure everything I do, everything we do against the land.
``I was compelled to write this, I was not commissioned. I began it six years ago when my father died, as a very spontaneous response to his passing. Then the press of other works and commissions forced me to put it aside.''
After a couple of false starts, including an attempt at ``Clouds'' for full orchestra, Adams settled upon the large chamber group format. He describes ``several leaps of faith along the way that made it happen.'' Among them was Falletta's vote of confidence.
``I told her it was going be very large and demanding, and that I'd keep her posted. She said, `Oh, I'll do that.' That was a wonderful confirmation.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
JoAnn Falletta
by CNB