Product Description
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.
Review
With their first collaboration, Ludovic Morlot, the Seattle Symphony Orchestra and composer John Luther Adams have struck gold. Become Ocean, Morlot's first large-scale commission as music director of the SSO, is a symphonic work that feels even vaster than its forty-two-minute span. By dividing the large ensemble into three interlocking orchestras, Adams created a score that works on multiple levels: it's an abstract sonic experience at one extreme and, at the other, an evocation of nature and its irresistible force. --Thomas May, Listen Magazine
"This is the piece of classical music of 2014 that has crossed over to a mainstream audience, and rightly so. Put it on speakers and people will stop what they're doing to say, "What is this? I love it!" Written as a meditation on rising - and ultimately all-consuming - tides, Adams has created a work that is both an orchestral showpiece (written, actually, for three juxtaposed mini-orchestras) and a completely haunting inner journey. The Seattle Symphony should be hugely proud of having commissioned Become Ocean and their stellar performance under conductor Ludovic Morlot." --Anastasia Tsioulcas, NPR 2014 "I never thought I would pick a Pulitzer Prize-winning composition for the top spot on my end-of-year list. For as long as I can remember, the Pulitzer judges focused on pleasing a niche group of academics who care more about "compositional strategies" than how music actually sounds. But contemporary classical music has changed, and the field is now spawning many appealing and genre-bending works. John Luther Adams lives up to the title of his composition, capturing an oceanic torrent of sound in an awe-inspiring performance. (Also check out the previous year's Pulitzer winner Caroline Shaw's "Partita for 8 Voices" for another example of th
"This is the piece of classical music of 2014 that has crossed over to a mainstream audience, and rightly so. Put it on speakers and people will stop what they're doing to say, "What is this? I love it!" Written as a meditation on rising - and ultimately all-consuming - tides, Adams has created a work that is both an orchestral showpiece (written, actually, for three juxtaposed mini-orchestras) and a completely haunting inner journey. The Seattle Symphony should be hugely proud of having commissioned Become Ocean and their stellar performance under conductor Ludovic Morlot." --Anastasia Tsioulcas, NPR 2014 "I never thought I would pick a Pulitzer Prize-winning composition for the top spot on my end-of-year list. For as long as I can remember, the Pulitzer judges focused on pleasing a niche group of academics who care more about "compositional strategies" than how music actually sounds. But contemporary classical music has changed, and the field is now spawning many appealing and genre-bending works. John Luther Adams lives up to the title of his composition, capturing an oceanic torrent of sound in an awe-inspiring performance. (Also check out the previous year's Pulitzer winner Caroline Shaw's "Partita for 8 Voices" for another example of th
