Town Hall Seattle and Seattle Symphony present

A Memoir of Music, Solitude, and Environmental Activism in Alaska

In the summer of 1975, a 22-year-old CalArts graduate moved to Alaska. Forty years later, with a rapidly warming Alaska and the crisis of climate change, he was faced with a difficult decision to leave a beloved state. This is the true story of composer John Luther Adams.

Adams joins us for a livestream discussion about these formative decades, and what it’s like to live alone in the frozen woods, composing music by day and spending evenings with a raucous crew of poets, philosophers, and fishermen. He shares stories from his memoir Silences So Deep: Music, Solitude, Alaska, detailing the influences that have allowed him to emerge as one of the most celebrated and recognizable composers of our time. He explores the impact of solitude, enriched by friendships with conductor Gordon Wright and poet John Haines, and describes the travails of environmental activism. Join Adams for a singularly rich account of a creative life that examines the challenges of life in the wilderness, demands of making art in an age of climate crisis, and the pleasures of intellectual fellowship.

Barry Lopez is an American author, essayist, and fiction writer whose work is known for its humanitarian and environmental concerns. Described as “the nation’s premier nature writer,” he is the author of over a dozen fiction and nonfiction books, including Of Wolves and Men and Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape.