WORLD PREMIERE RECORDING OF JOHN LUTHER ADAMS’ BECOME RIVER PERFORMED BY LUDOVIC MORLOT AND THE SEATTLE SYMPHONY AVAILABLE ON CANTALOUPE MUSIC ON SEPTEMBER 18
BECOME TRILOGY BOX SET WITH SEATTLE SYMPHONY’S PERFORMANCES OF BECOME OCEAN, BECOME DESERT AND BECOME RIVER OUT SEPTEMBER 25 ON CANTALOUPE MUSIC
Seattle, WA – Following the momentous success of Become Ocean and Become Desert, which were commissioned and premiered by the Seattle Symphony with Judith Fong Conductor Emeritus Ludovic Morlot conducting the orchestra, the highly anticipated Become River releases on September 18. The world premiere recording of Become River by the Seattle Symphony completes celebrated composer John Luther Adams’ Become Trilogy recordings with the orchestra and is now available digitally and on CD from Cantaloupe Music.
While Become River is the third to be released, the chamber ensemble piece was the first completed by John Luther Adams in a trilogy he never set out to write. Considered by NPR to be “America’s de facto chief environmental composer,” Adams conveys a pressing concern for nature throughout the Become works. In Become River, the music starts from a single high pitch, then descends and deepens, evoking the idea of a river and an amalgam of rivers for the listener.
The album joins its predecessors Become Ocean and Become Desert, whose recordings by the Seattle Symphony and Ludovic Morlot on the Cantaloupe label were released to critical acclaim. After its 2013 premiere with the Seattle Symphony, Become Ocean was awarded the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Music and the 2015 Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition.
“It may be the loveliest apocalypse in musical history.”
– Alex Ross, The New Yorker
Of Become Desert, which the Seattle Symphony premiered in 2018, The New York Times wrote, “[It] is packed with moments of drama in microcosm. Over a nearly 40-minute span, those slight twists combine to create a new route toward a grand impact. [And in] one moment, a vast expanse of heartbreak is surveyed in mere seconds.”
Become River is available now on Cantaloupe Music. The limited edition Become Trilogy box set, which features performances from the Seattle Symphony and Ludovic Morlot on all recordings, will be released digitally and on CD on September 25, 2020. The Become Trilogy recordings were produced by Nathaniel Reichman and Dmitriy Lipay, who received the 2017 Grammy Award for Best Surround Sound.
The Seattle Symphony's commission of John Luther Adams' Become Ocean was generously underwritten by Lynn and Brian Grant. The premiere of this piece was supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Become Desert was co-commissioned by:
Seattle Symphony
Ludovic Morlot, Music Director
with the generous support of Leslie and Dale Chihuly
The New York Philharmonic
Jaap van Zweden, Music Director
with co-commissions from the San Diego Symphony
and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra
Presented as part of the 2017–2018 Delta Air Lines Masterworks Season
JOHN LUTHER ADAMS | COMPOSER
For John Luther Adams (JLA), music is a lifelong search for home — an invitation to slow down, pay attention and remember our place within the larger community of life on earth.
Living for almost 40 years in northern Alaska, JLA discovered a unique musical world grounded in space, stillness and elemental forces. In the 1970s and into the ’80s, he worked full time as an environmental activist. But the time came when he felt compelled to dedicate himself entirely to music. He made this choice with the belief that, ultimately, music can do more than politics to change the world.
In works such as Become Ocean, In the White Silence and Canticles of the Holy Wind, Adams brings the sense of wonder that we feel outdoors into the concert hall. And in outdoor works such as Inuksuit and Sila: The Breath of the World, he employs music as a way to reclaim our connections with place, wherever we may be.
A deep concern for the state of the earth and the future of humanity drives Adams to continue composing. As he puts it:
If we can imagine a culture and a society in which we each feel more deeply responsible for our own place in the world, then we just may be able to bring that culture and that society into being. This will largely be the work of people who will be here on this earth when I am gone. I place my faith in them.
Since leaving Alaska, JLA and his wife Cynthia now divide their time between rural Mexico and the wilds of Manhattan.
LUDOVIC MORLOT | JUDITH FONG CONDUCTOR EMERITUS
Following eight years as Music Director, Ludovic Morlot is now Conductor Emeritus of the Seattle Symphony. Morlot’s innovative programming encompassed not only his choice of repertoire, but theatrical productions and performances outside the traditional concert hall space. There were numerous collaborations with musicians from different genres, commissions and world premieres. Under Morlot’s baton, 19 recordings were released under the Seattle Symphony Media label, the orchestra received five Grammy Awards and was named Gramophone’s 2018 Orchestra of the Year.
This season Morlot will make his subscription debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra and return to the Los Angeles, BBC, Seoul and Bergen Philharmonic and Vienna Symphony Orchestras. Morlot has a strong commitment to working with young musicians and will this season conduct student orchestras at Yale University and at the Royal Academy of Music in London, as well as returning to the Aspen Festival. In 2019 he led the National Youth Orchestra of China on their European Tour, having conducted their inaugural concerts in New York and China two years earlier.
Morlot has conducted the Berliner Philharmoniker, Royal Concertgebouw, Czech Philharmonic, Dresden Staaksapelle, London Philharmonic, Budapest Festival, Tokyo Philharmonic and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras. He has appeared at the BBC Proms, Wien Modern and Edinburgh Festivals. Other recent notable performances have included the New York Philharmonic, Chicago, Houston, Minnesota and Detroit Symphony Orchestras. Morlot has a particularly strong connection with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and has conducted the orchestra in subscription concerts in Boston, at Tanglewood and on a tour to the west coast of America.
Morlot was Chief Conductor of La Monnaie (2012–14). During this time he conducted several new productions including La Clemenza di Tito, Jenůfa and Pelléas et Mélisande.
SEATTLE SYMPHONY
Led by Music Director Thomas Dausgaard, the Seattle Symphony unleashes the power of music, brings people together and lifts the human spirit. Recognized as one of the “most vital American orchestras” (NPR), the Seattle Symphony is internationally acclaimed for its inventive programming, community-minded initiatives and superb recordings on the Seattle Symphony Media label. With a strong commitment to new music and a legacy of over 150 recordings, the orchestra has garnered five Grammy Awards, 26 Grammy nominations, two Emmy Awards and was named Gramophone’s 2018 Orchestra of the Year. The Symphony performs in Benaroya Hall in the heart of downtown Seattle from September through July, reaching over 500,000 people annually through live performances and radio broadcasts.
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