The Percussion Series » Steven Schick

The vastness of John Luther Adams' Alaskan landscape is brought to sound in his 75 minute long percussion solo, 'The Mathematics of Resonant Bodies.' Eight movements for percussion and computer generated electronics form tableaux that have come to epitomize Adams' music: the solitary figure of a human being suspended in a resonant space. Adams has often compared the lone figure of the soloist to the singular vertical 'zip' in a Barnett Newman painting. 'The Mathematics of Resonant Bodies' might seem lonesome but it is also teeming with life, with micro-tonal turbulence in the sounds of tam-tams, cymbals, drums, triangles and a lone bass air raid siren.