The composer has long been inspired by nature without sending an explicit political message. But his latest work takes on a newly urgent tone.
At the end of March, the Philadelphia Orchestra premiered “Vespers of the Blessed Earth,” the most recent work of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Luther Adams. Critics have described “Vespers” as a marked, climate change-inspired departure from Adams’ previous compositions — ”direct and message-driven”; a score that “mourns and damns, and declares where in the past Adams might have simply observed.” But Adams is surprised that reception to “Vespers” has invoked so much politics.
Long known as America’s “eco-composer,” John Luther Adams goes to the depths of the Grand Canyon and into the Colorado River in his new piece, Vespers of the Blessed Earth, with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Crossing choir in tow.
He never finished high school, took demanding work outside of music, moved to a cabin in Alaska, etc. Can you really win a Pulitzer Prize this way? Well, yes. . .
Los Angeles Times, May 3, 2018
