Located in the UK
Located in the USA
Located in Europe
- John Luther Adams
Become Ocean (2013)
- Taiga Press (BMI) (World)
- 3.3(ca).3(bcl).3(cbn)/4331/timp.3perc/2hp[+2hp].cel.pf/str
- 42 min
- 10th May 2025, Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg, Germany
- 5th June 2025, Stadtcasino, Basel, Switzerland
Programme Note
Over the years my orchestral music has become simpler and more expansive.
Clouds of Forgetting, Clouds of Unknowing (1991-95) contains four different musical textures. In the White Silence (1998) has three. For Lou Harrison (2002) reduces this to just two.
In Dark Waves (2007), I finally got to one. When I first heard that piece I began to wonder if I could sustain a similar sound for a longer span of time. The result is Become Ocean, a meditation on the vast, deep and mysterious tides of existence.
The title is borrowed from a mesostic verse that John Cage wrote in honor of Lou Harrison's birthday. Likening Harrison's music to a river in delta, Cage writes:
LiStening to it
we becOme
oceaN.
Life on this earth first emerged from the sea. And as the polar ice melts and sea level rises, we humans find ourselves facing the prospect that once again we may quite literally become ocean.
John Luther Adams
Clouds of Forgetting, Clouds of Unknowing (1991-95) contains four different musical textures. In the White Silence (1998) has three. For Lou Harrison (2002) reduces this to just two.
In Dark Waves (2007), I finally got to one. When I first heard that piece I began to wonder if I could sustain a similar sound for a longer span of time. The result is Become Ocean, a meditation on the vast, deep and mysterious tides of existence.
The title is borrowed from a mesostic verse that John Cage wrote in honor of Lou Harrison's birthday. Likening Harrison's music to a river in delta, Cage writes:
LiStening to it
we becOme
oceaN.
Life on this earth first emerged from the sea. And as the polar ice melts and sea level rises, we humans find ourselves facing the prospect that once again we may quite literally become ocean.
John Luther Adams
Media
Scores
Features
- Our Earth | Focus on...Climate Change
- Celebrate the environmental consciousness of Wise Music Group composers as we explore the meeting of art and activism in compositions which echo the urgent call of our planet.
Reviews
"...deeply textured and all-encompassing... [a] glorious, constantly changing stasis..."
20th May 2016
"If ever an orchestra sounded like an immense sonic object, slowly floating across a vast area, then this must be it."
“It may be the loveliest apocalypse in musical history.”
Discography
The Become Trilogy
- LabelCantaloupe Music
- Catalogue NumberCA21161
- ConductorLudovic Morlot
- EnsembleSeattle Symphony Orchestra
- Released25th September 2020
Become Ocean
- LabelCantaloupe
- Catalogue NumberCA-21101
- ConductorLudovic Morlot
- EnsembleSeattle Symphony
- Released6th October 2014
More Info
- Austrian premiere of Become Ocean by John Luther Adams
- 28th October 2024
- The expansive orchestral work Become Ocean, composed by John Luther Adams, receives its Austrian premiere on October 30 at the opening concert for Wien Modern’s new season.
- Catch John Luther Adams' "Become" works across the UK and Europe
- 6th September 2024
- The coming months bring several performances of John Luther Adams' work across the UK and Europe. Find out when and where to catch them here!
- International Wise Music Composers on our APAC stages
- 1st August 2023
- The works of well-respected composers, John Luther Adams, Hans Abrahamsen, Nico Muhly and Samuel Barber feature on stages in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.