Born in 1953 in Meridian, Mississippi, he began playing music as  a teenager as a drummer in rock bands. He attended the California Institute of the Arts as an undergraduate in the early 1970s,  studying with James Tenney and Leonard Stein, and graduated  in 1973. After graduating, Adams began work in environmental protection, and through this work Adams first travelled to  Alaska in 1975. Adams moved to Alaska in 1978 and lived there  until 2014. From 1982 to 1989, he performed as timpanist and  principal percussionist with the Fairbanks Symphony Orchestra  and the Arctic Chamber Orchestra. Since January 2024, Adams  and his wife now reside in Australia.

For almost forty years, John Luther Adams made his home in  the boreal forest of interior Alaska, where he discovered a unique  musical world grounded in space, stillness, and elemental forces. Adams’s composition work spans many genres and media. He  has composed for television, film, children’s theater, voice, acoustic instruments, orchestra, and electronics. Early in his career,  Adams was influenced by the music and writings of Frank Zappa,  whose enthusiasm for Edgard Varèse intrigued him. Through his  careful listening to Varèse, Adams developed an interest in and  was influenced by the music of John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen, among others. From 1998 to 2002, Adams served as associate professor of composition at Oberlin Conservatory of Music. In the 1970s and into the 1980s, he worked full-time as an environmental activist. But the time came when he felt compelled  to dedicate himself entirely to music. He made this choice with  the belief that, ultimately, music can do more than politics to  change the world. Since that time, he has become one of the most  widely admired and influential composers in the world, receiving  the Pulitzer Prize, a Grammy Award, and many other honours. In works such as Become Ocean, Become Desert, An Atlas of Deep  Time, and Canticles of the Holy Wind, Adams brings the sense of  wonder that we feel outdoors into the concert hall. His outdoor  works such as Inuksuit, Sila: The Breath of the World, and Crossing  Open Ground invite us to remember and reclaim our connections  with place, wherever we may be.

Now in his 70s, his deep concern for the state of the earth and  the future of humanity drives him to continue composing. As  he puts it: “If we can imagine a culture and a society in which we  each feel more deeply responsible for our own place in the world,  then we just may be able to bring that culture and that society  into being.”

Since leaving Alaska, Adams and his wife Cynthia have lived  in the Sonoran Desert of Mexico, the Atacama Desert of Chile,  and the Chihuahuan Desert of New Mexico. They now make  their home in the Red Centre of Australia.

Selected works: Green Corn Dance for percussion ensemble (1974), Night Peace for antiphonal choirs, solo soprano, harp and percussion (1976), A Northern Suite for orchestra  (1979–80/2004), songbirdsongs for two piccolos and three percussionists (1974–80), Strange Birds Passing for flute choir (1983), up  into the silence for voice and piano (1978–84), The Far Country of  Sleep for orchestra (1988), Giving Birth to Thunder, Sleeping With  His Daughter, Coyote Builds North America for clarinet, violin,  double bass, four percussionists and storyteller (1986–90), Five  Percussion Quartets from Coyote Builds North America (1990),  magic song for one who wishes to live and the dead who climb up  to the sky for voice and piano (1990), Dream In White On White  for string quartet, harp / piano and strings (1992), Earth and  the Great Weather, a “sonic geography of the Arctic” for strings,  singers, percussion, speaking voices and recorded natural sounds  (1990–93), Five Yup’ik Dances for harp (1991–94), Clouds of Forgetting, Clouds of Unknowing for chamber orchestra (1991–95),  Five Athabascan Dances for harp and percussion (1992–96), Three  Drum Quartets from Earth and the Great Weather (1993), Crow  and Weasel for piccolo / bass clarinet, four percussionists, celesta,  harp and string quintet (1993), Sauyatugvik: The Time of Drumming for orchestra (1995), Make Prayers to the Raven for flute,  violin, harp / piano, cello and percussion (1996–98), Sauyatugvik: The Time of Drumming version for two pianos, timpani and  four percussionists (1996), Strange and Sacred Noise six pieces  for percussion quartet (1991–97), In the White Silence for celesta,  harp, string quartet, two vibraphones and string orchestra (1998),  Qilyaun for four bass drums / bass drum with digital delay (1998),  The Immeasurable Space of Tones for violin, vibraphone, piano,  sustaining keyboard and contrabass instrument (1998–2001),  The Light That Fills the World for orchestra (2000/rev. 2015),  The Light That Fills the World (Chamber Version) for violin, vibraphone, marimba, sustaining keyboard and contrabass instrument  (2001), Among Red Mountains for piano (2001), Dark Wind for  bass clarinet, vibraphone, marimba and piano (2001), In a Treeless Place, Only Snow for celesta, harp / piano, two vibraphones  and string quartet (2001), The Farthest Place for violin, vibraphone, marimba, piano and double bass (2001), Red Arc / Blue  Veil for piano, mallet percussion and processed sounds (2002),  The Mathematics of Resonant Bodies for percussion and processed  sounds (2002), For Lou Harrison for string quartet, two pianos  and strings (2003), Poem of the Forgotten for voice and piano  (2004), …and bells remembered… for bowed crotales, orchestra  bells, chimes, vibraphone and bowed vibraphone (2005), for Jim  (rising) for three trumpets and three trombones (2006), The Place  Where You Go to Listen continuous sound and light environment (2006), Dark Waves for orchestra and electronic sounds  (2007), Dark Waves version for two pianos and electronic sounds  (2007), Three High Places (in memory of Gordon Wright) for solo  violin (2007), Nunataks (Solitary Peaks) for solo piano (2007),  The Light Within for alto flute, bass clarinet, vibraphone/crotales,  piano, violin, cello and electronic sounds (2007), Always Very Soft for percussion trio (2007), Little Cosmic Dust Poem for voice  and piano (2007), Veils and Vesper four electronic soundscapes  (2008), the place we began four electroacoustic soundscapes  (2008), Inuksuit for 9–99 percussionists (2009), Become River for  chamber orchestra (2010), The Light Within (orchestra version)  for orchestra and electronic sounds (2010), Four Thousand Holes  for piano, percussion and electronic sounds (2010), The Wind in  High Places for string quartet (2011), Tukiliit (The Stone People  Who Live in the Wind) for piano (2012), Ilimaq for percussionist  and electronic sounds (2012), Become Oceanfor large orchestra  (2013), Sila: The Breath of the World for five ensembles (2013),  Three Canticles of the Birds for piano and percussion (2013),  Dream of the Canyon Wren for string quartet (2013), Canticles of  the Holy Wind for four choirs and vocal soloists (2013), Canticles  of the Skyfor four choirs (SATB) (2013), Ten Thousand Birds for  chamber orchestra (2014), Soundwalk 9:09, soundwalk installation (2016), Three High Places (in memory of Gordon Wright) for  cello / violin (2007–17), Become Desert for large orchestra and  chorus (2017), there is no one, not even the wind for flute, alto  flute, two percussionists, piano, violin, viola, cello and double  bass (2017), Everything That Rises for string quartet (2017), In  the Name of the Earth for massed voices (2017), The Wind Garden, longterm sound environment (2017), Lines Made by Walking for string quartet (2019), Vespers of the Blessed Earth for four  SATB choirs, soprano and orchestra (2021), Waves and Particles  for string quartet (2021), Forest Without Leaves for chorus, vocal  soloist and chamber orchestra (1984–2022), An Atlas of Deep  Time for orchestra (2022), Darkness and Scattered Light for five  double basses (2022), Three Nocturnes for double bass (2022),  A Brief Descent into Deep Time for SATB and percussion/organ  (2022), Crossing Open Ground for woodwinds, brass and percussion (2023), Prophecies of Stone for piano and orchestra (2023),  Prophecies of Fire for percussion quartet (2023), Noctilucent for  string quartet (2020–25), Horizon for 17 strings (2025), Never and  Always Becoming for string quartet (2025).