Another new world from John Luther Adams! Glorious! Filled with light!

Arguing about whether this performance is "music" reminds me of astronomers arguing abut whether Pluto is a "planet". It makes no difference to Pluto or this performance, what we call it, but it does alter our perception of it. "Music" is hard to define. Wouldn't it be better to consider simpler and more direct questions, like: Was it worth listening to? Would you pay to go an experience it live? Do you think it enhances your/our cultural richness? Is it uplifting, or enlightening, or healing, or entertaining. Should this sort of thing be supported by public money? Can students of music learn something positive from this?..... No doubt there a many other questions that could be asked ... Does anyone care to add (or subtract) any?

I started with a general negative attitude to avant-garde anything, but listening with an open mind, I find myself refreshed - soothed at times, a little alarmed at times - taken on a journey and by the end left more alive. Leaving aside abstract definitions of the word "music" - (it's just a word folks!) - anything that leaves me feeling more alive (or perhaps better, reminding me that I AM alive, and how amazing that is) I am grateful for. Bravo!

It's theater.

For music to be music it must develop a personal communication with the listener, it must trigger an irrational response, a feeling (not just plain admiration).

So, just like there are many perceptions and people´s responses to the same situation, there are forms of music that are music for a few and there are forms of music that we all can relate to.

There can be no formal definition of what music should be (even the fact that it must hold a structure can be questioned), and when we listen to "the things" that have como to pass since the 1950's well... is up to us and to history to define what can be accepted or rejected as forms of music.

That being said... for me it was a boring but interesting experiment on environmental percussion. Musicians and composers must take note on how performances can be enhanced by the lessons this experiment left us.

Just to finalize, a friend of mine (a painter) told me that when the artist generates a work that people can't understand (and they must invet a code just to say the understood, so the others or themselves won't mark them as ignorant) is because they're either selfish or pretentious.

If you felt it, rejoice on it, if you don't, move to the next one. I don't see why people get so heated up about this being art or not. I don't even see musicologist getting that far.

of course it's music, and a beautiful piece at that. my sympathies go out to the authors of comments #2 (boring? beyond that I''m stuck for polite, non-snark response.) and #7 (all music is a sound experiment. and anyway, who you callin' "we"? my soul and my heart had a wonderful time movin' right along with it.) to MsB, I listened to most of it without the visual. the music stands up and carries its own very well. I'm also wondering where's the spontaneous factor. going to play it again now, this time I'll watch too. then I'm gonna send it to everyone I know online, tagged "mandatory".

MY OBSERVATIONS/QUESTIONS: 1. Was there a score...or a script? (I'd love to see it); 2. I think it would be better observed live...(the Armory's acoustics must've been fantastic); 3. I'm not sure it's music...but effect AND affect...more like aural prose; 4. I liked it...am not certain why (which may have been the composer's object).

I feel like the boy who noticed the emperor was nude. With all the wonderful things about this composition, has no one else noticed that it is utterly boring?

Alex Ross's compelling take on the work: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/musical/2011/03/14/110314crmu_music_ross?currentPage=2

Yes, it is music, but where would it be without the visuals? I would like to see it as background to a slideshow of inuksuit using the Ken Burns effect, or a suspense thriller movie.

Yes this is music. Very cool and interesting music. Some who are tuned to earlier visions might disagree. It is the aural equivalent to Miro or Pollack when they want to see Rembrant. Both are art, but with differing structures. I do question that you call it spontaneous. There is a score. instruments have been assembled. Cameras were in place.

This is only a sound experiment and sure we can't listen this after we was in a Renaissance or Baroque silence. I don't contest the experience and the performance of this musicians, but I think the futurist sound experiment are only sound experiment and not music because I don't feel it with my soul and my heart.