By MIKE DUNHAM
John Luther Adams: In his studio near Fairbanks in 2005.
Alaskan composer John Luther Adams has been named the 2010 winner of the $100,000 Michael Ludwig Nemmers Prize in Music Composition. The announcement was made Thursday by the Northwestern University Henry and Leigh Bienen School of Music in Evanston, Ill.

The biennial award honors classical music composers of outstanding achievement who had a significant impact on the field of composition. In 2004, the award went to John Adams, the composer of “Nixon in China,” sometimes confused with the Alaskan composer, who lives near Fairbanks.

The committee that selected Adams is comprised of three anonymous individuals of “widely recognized stature in the international music community,” said a press release.

As the recipient of the 2010 Nemmers Prize, Adams will receive a cash award of $100,000. In addition to the cash award, he will have two residencies at the Bienen school of music and have one of his works performed at a later date by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Adams’ work for orchestra and electronic sounds, “Dark Waves,” was already scheduled to be performed by the Chicago Symphony on Oct. 28 and 29. That piece debuted with the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra in Feb. 2007, commissioned by Musica Nova, a local organization that promotes creation and performances of new music.

Find Mike Dunham online at adn.com/contact/mdunham or call 257-4332.