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Become Ocean

by Seattle Symphony

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  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $15 USD  or more

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Includes unlimited streaming of Become Ocean via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $30 USD or more 

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Get a super-limited copy of Become Ocean signed by the left-handed Grammy-winning pen of John Luther Adams.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Become Ocean via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    edition of 25  2 remaining
    Purchasable with gift card

      $75 USD or more 

     

  • Poster/Print + Digital Album

    Bring the ocean to your living room with a limited edition art print celebrating JLA's deepest, vastest symphony.

    These 21"x 21" prints on fine art paper feature the photograph by Sebastian Meckelmann used on the album cover of Become Ocean, and are each signed by John Luther Adams.

    Only 5 of these left in existence!

    Includes unlimited streaming of Become Ocean via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 7 days
    edition of 10  5 remaining
    Purchasable with gift card

      $500 USD or more 

     

  • Full Digital Discography

    Get all 8 John Luther Adams releases available on Bandcamp and save 20%.

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Sila: The Breath of the World, The Become Trilogy, Become Desert, Canticles of the Holy Wind, Ilimaq, Become Ocean, Inuksuit, and The Mathematics of Resonant Bodies. , and , .

    Excludes subscriber-only releases.

    Purchasable with gift card

      $77.60 USD or more (20% OFF)

     

1.
Become Ocean 42:13

about

Awarded the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Music and described by the New Yorker’s Alex Ross as “...the loveliest apocalypse in musical history,” John Luther Adams’ majestic orchestral work Become Ocean is a thrilling exploration of depth, turbulence, eerie silence and ultimately enveloping calm. Performed by the Seattle Symphony under the baton of Ludovic Morlot, the music casts an expressive arc that’s by turns intimate and expansive -- an ebbing and flowing sonic journey that finds the composer testing the very limits of his imagination.

“The title is stolen from John Cage,” Adams reveals, “from a little mesostic poem that he wrote in honor of Lou Harrison. He compares Lou’s music to a river in delta, with all these different influences and currents, coming together in a big beautiful sweep of music. And in the last line of the poem, Cage writes, ‘Listening to it, we become ocean.’ I’ve always been struck by what a beautiful image that is.”

Become Ocean premiered in Seattle in June 2013, and made its Carnegie Hall debut on May 6, 2014. In recent years, Adams has moved to fold natural processes into his approach to composing; the “earth” element came through in particular with Cantaloupe Music’s release in 2013 of his open-air percussion piece Inuksuit. Now with the “water” element represented in Become Ocean (and with “wind” being an integral force in his latest piece Sila), Adams continues to accentuate what he sees as the vital importance, especially in this modern age of irony and isolation, of connecting to something larger than ourselves.

Mixed and mastered for stereo and 5.1 surround sound, Become Ocean is a truly immersive experience that is meant to be felt at an emotional level. “What I want for you as a listener,” Adams explains, “is to be right in the middle of the orchestra. Become Ocean lends itself very well to putting you in the middle of this ocean of sound, with these three sections of the orchestra ebbing and flowing, rising and falling, crashing over and swirling around each other. It rumbles the floor and tickles your backbone, and at the same time, you feel the depth of the waves and the spray of the sea. That’s what I’m reaching for.”

credits

released September 30, 2014

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John Luther Adams New York, New York

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