The estimable Frank Oteri asked me for a report on John Luther Adams’s sound installation The Place Where You Go to Listen for New Music Box, so instead of rambling about it here, I wrote it up real good for him, and it’s now over there. The title, “A Long Ride in a Slow Machine,” comes from a joke John made about the difference between his career and that of the other John Adams, whom we tend to refer to as John Coolidge Adams. After you go read that article, you’ll get more of a kick out of this message I just got from John:
Yesterday evening Jim and I were working in The Place. Suddenly the
drums started kicking. We looked online to see that a 4.7 quake had
just rocked the Alaska/Yukon border area, then listened as the waves
hit each of our seismic stations, one by one. It was pure magic. Talk about your rock ‘n roll…