{"id":3782,"date":"2026-01-09T23:07:38","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T04:07:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/?p=3782"},"modified":"2026-01-10T13:03:52","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T18:03:52","slug":"john-luther-adams-on-why-i-moved-from-the-us-to-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2026\/01\/john-luther-adams-on-why-i-moved-from-the-us-to-australia.html","title":{"rendered":"John Luther Adams on “Why I Moved from the US to Australia”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

A couple of my recent blogs \u2013 here<\/a> and here<\/a> — have saluted John Luther Adams as \u201camong the most esteemed present-day American composers for orchestra. . . . Encountering Adams\u2019s Become Ocean<\/em> on a 21st-century symphonic program is so fundamentally enthralling that it risks clich\u00e9. It is the proverbial oasis in the desert. The Sahara here is contemporary American concert music inscribed in sand.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Long a resident of Alaska, then of the American southwest, Adams moved to Australia two years ago. In a recent piece for Australia\u2019s The Saturday Paper<\/em>, he addresses \u201cWhy I moved from the US to Australia.\u201d You can read it here.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some excerpts worth pondering:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

–\u201cThe culture creates the politics and, with tongue lightly in cheek, I\u2019ve taken to referring to my wife and myself as ‘cultural refugees.’ The relentless commercialization, rising tides of xenophobia, the strident acrimony of social discourse, the violence and the increasingly hysterical tenor of life in the USA have simply worn us down. We are among the few privileged enough to be able to leave.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

–\u201cI\u2019ve come to believe that ultimately art does more than politics to change the world. Music is not what I do, it\u2019s how I understand the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

–\u201cI don\u2019t believe that politics will change fundamentally until culture changes. Throughout history, the ideas that transform societies have come from writers, painters, novelists, poets, even composers. From scientists, philosophers, theologians and others whose lives are dedicated to asking new questions, to seeking beauty and truth, not power.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A couple of my recent blogs \u2013 here and here — have saluted John Luther Adams as \u201camong the most esteemed present-day American composers for orchestra. . . . Encountering Adams\u2019s Become Ocean on a 21st-century symphonic program is so fundamentally enthralling that it risks clich\u00e9. It is the proverbial oasis in the desert. The Sahara here is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3782","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QLHN-Z0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3782"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3792,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3782\/revisions\/3792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}