"Trained as a professional flautist and leading a busy career as conductor and flautist, Katherine Hoover is also a distinguished composer with a sizeable body of works to her credit. Though she has composed much music for flute, she has also written substantial works for orchestra and chamber ensembles. I for one was particularly impressed by Katherine Hoover the composer whose music was new to me and who is a most distinguished composer with a remarkable orchestral flair, who has obviously things to say and who knows how to say them in the best possible way" (Hubert Culot/MusicWeb International). Watch a performance of Katherine Hoover's Thin Ice (2009) with pianist Mirian Conti . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

John Luther Adams is a composer whose music embodies the landscapes of Alaska, his home since 1978. Like many composers of his generation, Adams did not grow up immersed in scored music. He began playing music as a teenager, as a drummer in rock bands. Through his experience in rock bands, friends introduced him to the music of Frank Zappa. Through the liner notes of a Zappa album, he discovered Edgard Varèse. Similarly, Varèse's liner notes brought him to John Cage. But it was not until Adams discovered Morton Feldman that he found his calling. After graduating from Cal Arts, Adams began work in environmental protection. This work first brought him to Alaska in 1975. His deep love for the location led to his permanent migration there in 1978. It continues to be the driving force in his music to this day. Adams' musical work spans many genres and media. He has composed for television, film, children's theater, voice, acoustic instruments, orchestra, and electronics. Adams himself says: "My music has always been profoundly influenced by the natural world and a strong sense of place. Through sustained listening to the subtle resonances of the northern soundscape, I hope to explore the territory of 'sonic geography' - that region between place and culture . . . between environment and imagination". Watch a performance of John Luther Adams' Sauyatugvik - The Time of Drumming (1996) with the Mark Pekarsky Percussion Ensemble . . . it's this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC FOR PERCUSSION.

William Zagorski (Fanfare Magazine) writes: "Karen Amrhein's collection of works on MMC Records showcases a young and still evolving composer with a strong musical profile and an abiding respect for, and mastery of, techniques of the past. She is a striking miniaturist and a superb contrapuntalist, but one who exploits that often dour and forbidding device in the most ingratiating of ways. Her aphoristic music is enlivened by an attractive sense of whimsy and delight at being alive, and listening to it in chronological sequence, I have the sense of a composer who is not merely developing at a fast pace, but doing so explosively." The Baltimore based Amrhein has twice been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and she has written for orchestra, soloists with orchestra, chorus, chamber ensembles, voice and instrumental soloists. Listen to the final movement from Amrhein's Sonata for Trumpet and Piano (1996) . . . one of this week's PYTHEAS EARFULS.

Lou Harrison for fifty years was in the vanguard of American composers. An innovator of musical composition and performance that transcends cultural boundaries, Harrison's highly acclaimed work juxtaposes and synthesizes musical dialects from virtually every corner of the world. Growing up in the culturally diverse San Francisco Bay Area, Harrison was influenced by Cantonese Opera, Gregorian chants and the music of California's Spanish and Mexican cultures. He also developed an interest in Indonesian Gamelan music through early recordings. His early compositions included a large body of percussion music, combining Western, Asian, African and Latin American rhythmic influences with homemade "junk" instruments. During this period, Harrison worked closely with John Cage and began studies in Los Angeles with Arnold Schoenberg. A move to New York in the mid-1940's brought Harrison to the Herald Tribune as music critic. Here he helped to bring wider attention to the work of Charles Ives, and is considered largely responsible for Ives' receiving the Pulitzer Prize. The young composer and critic also embarked on a study of early European music during this period. In the late forties, Harrison taught at the legendary Black Mountain College. By the early fifties, he moved back to California, where he lived till his death in 2003. Over the decades he maintained an interest in dance, theater and the craft of instrument building and was an accomplished puppeteer who wrote written musical for puppet theater. Harrison traveled extensively, adding to the global resonance his artistry, performing and studying with the musical masters of varied cultures, and presenting his work to enthusiastic audiences everywhere. Watch a performance of the Round from Harrison's Serenade for Guitar (1978) with guitarist Joshua Bornfield . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.