An orchestral composition inspired by the oceans of Alaska and the Pacific Northwest and commissioned by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, has, in turn, inspired superstar singer-songwriter Taylor Swift to donate $50,000 earmarked for musical education in Seattle classrooms.
“Become Ocean,” composed by John Luther Adams, was first performed in Seattle’s Benaroya Hall in 2013 and won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Music as well as the 2015 Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition.
The composer provided the superscription: “Life on this earth first emerged from the sea. 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.”
A onetime conservation activist who moved to Alaska in the nineteen-seventies, Adams has witnessed the effects of climate change at close range and his music reflects that reality. “Become Ocean” is punctuated by three huge crescendos, evenly spaced over the three-quarter-hour span, suggesting a tidal surge washing over all barriers. The composer’s previous orchestral works, including “Dark Waves,” among others, evoke mighty, natural processes through the accumulation of gradually shifting patterns.
The swelling, oceanic composition was described by Alex Ross in the New Yorker as “magnificent” with “a sense of unwinding, of subsiding, of dissolution.” The title of the piece comes from lines that John Cage wrote in tribute to the music of his colleague Lou Harrison: “Listening to it we become ocean.”
Swift’s donation will support two Seattle Symphony programs. One is Link Up, a music-education initiative for elementary-school students — which will send teaching artists into Seattle classrooms for week-long residencies. Link Up has an annual budget of $360,000. [24×7]
