Second Inversion: Become Ocean – Saturday, August 9 | 9pm
August 4, 2025
John Luther Adams is the featured composer in this week’s episode. Photo by Evan Hurd.
Picture yourself walking along a snowy trail through the Alaskan forest. You’re surrounded by aspen, spruce, and paper birch trees. Snowy owls and other critters are camouflaged in the landscape. Mountains in the distance, sun beaming overhead. Your boots leaving footprints in the powdery snow.
Your destination is a small, one-room cabin in the middle of this boreal forest—the Alaskan taiga.
It’s a walk John Luther Adams made almost every day. For decades, this 16-by-20-foot cabin was the center of his world: his studio, where he mapped the music of the arctic—a kind of sonic geography. These days, Adams makes his home in the Sonoran Desert, where his music remains deeply embedded in the landscapes of the natural world.
This Saturday on Second Inversion, we’re taking a deep dive into the music of John Luther Adams, beginning with his Pulitzer Prize-winning piece Become Ocean (commissioned by the Seattle Symphony in 2013). Plus, Adams introduces us to the music and poetry of mountains and desert.
To listen, tune in to Classical KING on Saturday, August 9 at 9pm PT.
