john luther adams become desert

seattle symphony ludovic morlot

Become Desert
Close your eyes and listen to the singing of the light… — Octavio Paz
I’m drawn to the desert because, like the tundra, most deserts are places
in which there are few people. But for me, the essence of the desert is not
absence. It is presence.
In the desert there are moments when, as Octavio Paz writes, you sense
that “there is no one, not even yourself.” These moments are invitations to
surrender our expectations, to lose ourselves in listening to the music of
the present.
My own deserts are in Mexico and in South America. However Become
Desert is not a painting of any particular landscape. I imagine this music
as a landscape of its own, a landscape that extends beyond the place in
which it was composed. In the ears and the imagination of the listener, I
hope this becomes a private desert of your own.
Living in Alaska for almost forty years, I experienced first-hand the
accelerating effects of anthropogenic climate change on the tundra, the
forest, the glaciers, the plants, animals and people of the Far North.
While composing Become Ocean, I was haunted by the image of the melting
of the polar ice and the rising of the seas.
Now in my new home, far to the south, I’ve become aware of a very
different manifestation of global warming—desertification. Rampant
wildfires in California, the rapid evaporation of Lake Poopó in the Bolivian
altiplano, deep droughts in the Sahel of Africa and in large parts of Australia
are signs of what is to come. And as human population continues to explode,
it seems likely that vast regions all over the earth will soon become desert.
Become Desert is both a celebration of the deserts we are given and a
lamentation of the deserts we create.
— John Luther Adams
SEATTLE SYMPHONY

LUDOVIC MORLOT, Harriet Overton Stimson Music Director

VIOLA
Susan Gulkis Assadi, PONCHO Principal Viola
omas Dausgaard, Music Director Designate
Arie Schächter, Assistant Principal **
Joseph Crnko, Associate Conductor for Choral Activities
Mara Gearman
Pablo Rus Broseta, Douglas F. King Associate Conductor
Timothy Hale
Gerard Schwarz, Rebecca & Jack Benaroya Conductor Laureate
Penelope Crane
Wes Dyring
Allison Farkas °
Sayaka Kokubo
Daniel Stone
FIRST VIOLIN Rachel Swerdlow
Noah Geller, David & Amy Fulton Concertmaster Julie Whitton
Open Position, Clowes Family Associate Concertmaster
Open Position, Assistant Concertmaster CELLO
Simon James, Second Assistant Concertmaster Efe Baltacıgil, Marks Family Foundation Principal Cello
Jennifer Bai Meeka Quan DiLorenzo, Assistant Principal
Mariel Bailey Nathan Chan
Cecilia Poellein Buss Eric Han
Timothy Garland Bruce Bailey
Leonid Keylin Roberta Hansen Downey
Mae Lin Walter Gray
Mikhail Shmidt Vivian Gu
Clark Story Joy Payton-Stevens
John Weller David Sabee
Jeannie Wells Yablonsky
Arthur Zadinsky BASS
Jordan Anderson, Mr. & Mrs. Harold H. Heath Principal String Bass
SECOND VIOLIN Joseph Kaufman, Assistant Principal
Elisa Barston, Principal Jonathan Burnstein
Michael Miropolsky, John & Carmen Delo Assistant Principal Second Vio- Brendan Fitzgerald °
lin Jennifer Godfrey
Kathleen Boyer Travis Gore
Gennady Filimonov Jonathan Green
Evan Anderson
Natasha Bazhanov FLUTE
Brittany Breeden Demarre McGill, Principal, Supported by David and Shelley Hovind
Stephen Bryant Jeffrey Barker, Associate Principal
Linda Cole Judy Washburn Kriewall
Xiao-po Fei Zartouhi Dombourian-Eby
Artur Girsky
Andy Liang PICCOLO
Andrew Yeung Zartouhi Dombourian-Eby, e Robert & Clodagh Ash Piccolo
OBOE TUBA MEMBERS OF THE
Mary Lynch, Principal, Supported by anonymous donors John DiCesare, Principal SEATTLE SYMPHONY CHORALE
Ben Hausmann, Associate Principal
Chengwen Winnie Lai TIMPANI SOPRANO
Stefan Farkas James Benoit, Principal Lolly Brasseur
Matthew Decker, Assistant Principal Ellen Cambron
ENGLISH HORN Teryl Hawk
Stefan Farkas PERCUSSION Elizabeth Husmann
Michael A. Werner, Principal Natalie Ingrisano
CLARINET Michael Clark
Benjamin Lulich, Mr. & Mrs. Paul R. Smith Principal Clarinet Maria Männistö
Matthew Decker Megan McCormick
Emil Khudyev, Associate Principal
Laura DeLuca, Dr. Robert Wallace Clarinet Brenna Wells
HARP
Eric Jacobs Valerie Muzzolini, Principal, Supported by Eliza and Brian Shelden ALTO
E-FLAT CLARINET Kathryn Cannon Miller
Laura DeLuca KEYBOARD Terri Chan
Joseph Adam, Organ + Aurora de la Cruz
BASS CLARINET Shreya Joseph
Eric Jacobs PERSONNEL MANAGER Inger Kirkman
Scott Wilson Angela Petrucci
BASSOON
Seth Krimsky, Principal Kathryn Tewson
ASSISTANT PERSONNEL MANAGER Mindy Yardy
Paul Rafanelli Keith Higgins
Mike Gamburg **
Dana Jackson ° TENOR
LIBRARY Spencer Davis
CONTRABASSOON Robert Olivia, Associate Librarian Jacob Garcia
Mike Gamburg ** Jeanne Case, Librarian Alexander Jones
Dana Jackson ° Rachel Swerdlow, Assistant Librarians Kevin Kralman
Andrew Magee
HORN ARTIST IN ASSOCIATION Christopher Reed
Jeffrey Fair, Charles Simonyi Principal Horn Dale Chihuly Scott Spaulding
Mark Robbins, Associate Principal, Supported by Stephen Whyte Miguel Villahermosa
Jonathan Karschney, Assistant Principal HONORARY MEMBER
Jenna Breen Cyril M. Harris † BASS
John Turman Gus Blazek
Danielle Kuhlmann + Resident Evan Figueras
† In Memoriam Curtis Fonger
TRUMPET ** On Leave David Gary
David Gordon, Boeing Company Principal Trumpet ° Temporary Musician for 2018–2019 Season Kelvin Helmeid
Alexander White, Assistant Principal
Bryan Lung
Christopher Stingle
Martin Rothwell
Michael Myers e Seattle Symphony wishes to recognize the following additional Christopher Smith
musicians who performed on this recording: Elizabeth Phelps, Michael Uyyek
TROMBONE
Amber Archibald-Sesek, Aaron Conitz, Joseph Gottesman,
Ko-ichiro Yamamoto, Principal
Charles Jacot, eresa Benshoof, Todd Larsen, Rose Gear, Edward
David Lawrence Ritt
Burns, Rodger Burnett, Matthew Berliner, Carson Keeble, Rob
Stephen Fissel
Tucker, Gunnar Folsom, Blaine Inafuku, Sophie Baird-Daniel,
BASS TROMBONE John Carrington and Matthew Tutsky.
Stephen Fissel
Become Desert was co-commissioned by:
Seattle Symphony
Ludovic Morlot, Music Director
with the generous support of Leslie and Dale Chihuly
e New York Philharmonic
Jaap Van Zweden, Music Director
with co-commissions from the San Diego Symphony
and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra.
Become Desert was premiered by the Seattle Symphony on March 29 and 31, 2018 in Benaroya
Hall as part of the Seattle Symphony’s Delta Air Lines Masterworks Season.

Producers: Nathaniel Reichman, Dmitriy Lipay

Recording engineers: Dmitriy Lipay, Alexander Lipay
Mixing and mastering engineer: Nathaniel Reichman
Surround engineers: Nathaniel Reichman, Dmitriy Lipay
Recorded on September 25 and 26, 2018 in the S. Mark Taper Foundation Auditorium in Benaroya
Hall, Seattle, WA. Edited at Tippet Rise Art Center, Fishtail MT. Mixed at Dolby Laboratories,
New York, NY. Mastered at Dubway Studios, Delmar, NY.
Music engraving by Samuel Clay Birmaher

Special thanks to Cynthia Adams, Molly Sheridan, Allison Ryan-Reichman, Tim O’Donnell, Earl
Blackburn, Peter and Cathy Halstead, Monte Nickles, Krishna iagarajan, Elena Dubinets and
Rosalie Contreras.
Special thanks to the Robert D. Bielecki Foundation and the Aaron Copland Fund for Music for
their invaluable contributions to this recording.

Become Desert is published by Taiga Press (BMI) and distributed by Chester Music/Music Sales.

Executive producers: Michael Gordon, David Lang, Kenny Savelson and Julia Wolfe
Label manager: Bill Murphy
Sales & licensing: Adam Cuthbert
Label assistant: Cassie Wieland
Art direction: Jim Fox
Photography: Dennis Keeley (package interior), El Mirage (1992)
NASA (booklet interior)

DVD menus: John Brown @ cloud chamber

DVD authoring: Michael Fossenkemper
All still photography visible during DVD playback courtesy of John Luther Adams

For more information about the Seattle Symphony, visit seattlesymphony.org.

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