Full Score-John Luther Adams' Become Ocean for Orchestra (Full score) 'Become OceanOver 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 WhiteSilence (1998) has three. For Lou Harrison (2002) reduces this to just two. In Dark Waves (2007) I finally got to one. When Ifirst heard that piece I began to wonder if I could sustain asimilar sound for a longer span of time. The result is Become Ocean a meditation on the vast deep and mysterious tides of existence.Thetitle 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. Lifeon 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
