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Memory spaces

Charles Ives once said that every man hears his own symphony, which John Cage understood to mean that the actual sounds one hears in the surrounding environment becomes that symphony.

“On The Transmigration of Souls”, winner of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Music, by American composer John Adams, is intended as a ‘memory space’ for the victims and families of 9-11 and brings the sounds of the streets of New York into the hallowed, rarefied air of the concert hall.

The 27-minute piece for orchestra, chorus, and pre-recorded sound also evokes a grand tradition of ambience and elegies by other Americans.