Listen to The Wind Garden, UC San Diego, California

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John Luther Adams is a composer whose life and work are deeply rooted in the natural world. The New Yorker’s Alex Ross calls him, “one of the most original musical thinkers of the new century.” Adams studied composition with James Tenney at the California Institute of the Arts. In the mid-1970s he became active in the campaign for the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, and subsequently served as executive director of the Northern Alaska Environmental Center. For the Stuart Collection at the UC San Diego, Adams created a musical composition with and within the signature landscape of the campus: the eucalyptus grove. Located in the UCSD Theater District, The Wind Garden invites us to listen more deeply to the music of this place. There are no pre-recorded elements, no data streams or sounding elements transposed from other locations. Everything that occurs in The Wind Garden is driven by the wind and the light conditions on the site, in real time. This work never repeats itself. Even for people who experience it on a regular basis, each encounter with The Wind Garden is a unique experience of listening and discovery. Entering along the central pathway, one becomes aware of a soft atmosphere of sound wafting through the grove. The sounds are vaguely reminiscent of bells, voices and strings. But the movement of the trees, leaves and air in the grove makes it difficult to say exactly where they emanate.

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