What would the Arctic sound like if it could be expressed musically? John Luther Adams is a composer who created a sound-and-light installation at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks that reflects that environment, called “The Place Where You Go to Listen.” Occupying a small room in the University’s Museum of the North, “The Place” translates data from seismological, meteorological and geomagnetic stations around Alaska into “an intricate, vibrantly colored field of electronic sound,” in the words of Alex Ross, writing in the May 12 issue of The New Yorker.
The sounds that are created respond to changing conditions of the sky, the rhythms of night and day, phases of the moon, seismic readings from the earth, and disturbances in the earth’s magnetic field (which is responsible for creating the Aurora Borealis). Adams describes the project as “an imaginary world that is connected directly to the real world, the larger world.”
Recounting a recent experience at “The Place,” Ross says what you first notice is a “dense, organlike sonority, which Adams has named the Day Choir.” The sonority follows the contours of the harmonic series, the naturally occurring overtones of pitches produced by a vibrating string. The range of harmonies narrow in overcast weather and widen when the sun shines. “After the sun goes down,” Ross continues, “a darker, moodier set of chords, the Night Choir, moves to the forefront.” Pulsating bass patterns are triggered by small earthquakes and shimmering, high sounds are triggered by the earth’s magnetic fluctuations in parallel with the Aurora Borealis.
Adams also writes music for ensembles, orchestra, voice and percussion that incorporate processed and electronic sounds. His website indicates that he is working on a new sound-and-light installation for Venice, Italy, and a large percussion piece intended to be heard outdoors. Ross calls Adams “one of the most original musical thinkers of the new century.” You can read his article at The New Yorker.
(Photo credit: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge – public domain)
