John Luther Adams on the Scottish premiere of Become Ocean at Glasgow's Sonica festival

John Luther Adams | Donald Lee

“‘Become’ is both an invitation and a prophecy – I think that speaks to both the beauty and the darkness of the music.” Composer John Luther Adams is talking about the unusual title of his piece Become Ocean, which will get its Scottish premiere as part of Glasgow’s Sonica festival on 28 September, when it will be performed by the RSNO, with live digital images created by visual artist Alba G Corral.

On the one hand, that title certainly seems like an invitation to imagine ourselves closer to the great waters of the planet, and in the process acknowledge our inseparable oneness with nature. Similarly, however, it could be seen as a bleak allusion to the future. As Adams writes in his own programme note: “Life on 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.”

Adams was for more than a decade an environmental activist in northern Alaska, before devoting himself entirely to music from the mid-1980s. His compositions, however, retain indelible connections with the natural world. Become Ocean dates from 2014, and won him both a Pulitzer Prize for music and a contemporary classical Grammy. “It’s certainly my best-known work,” he admits, “and I love it – it’s a singular piece. I’m grateful that this music seems to have touched on something in the broader collective imagination, and that it speaks somehow to the realities of our time.”

In the music, those realities lie in both the beauty and the darkness that Adams mentions. The piece unfolds as a series of enormous, swelling waves, surging across separate ensembles of strings, woodwind and brass, and forming mighty, all-consuming climaxes that seem at once awe-inspiring and terrifying. Influential New Yorker critic Alex Ross described Become Ocean as “the loveliest apocalypse in musical history”.

“We’re living in unprecedented times as a species,” Adams says. “And we’re facing the very sobering realities of our own creation. What choice to do we have but to face that and accept the invitation to become ocean, become desert, or even – heaven help us – become fire?”

Earlier in his career, Adams accepts, he may have focused on highlighting humankind’s connections with the natural world. To that end, there’s an undeniably celebratory, even joyful aspect to much of his music – including in Become Ocean’s wondrous surges. More recently, however, Adams has begun to view things differently, though a prism of grief and loss, but also acceptance.

“By the turn of the century in Alaska, we could no longer deny the rapid and drastic changes we were seeing in the world around us,” he explains. “If I tried to cling to my youthful romanticism, I knew I’d fall into an abyss of despair. So I had to let those delusions go. But in expressing our grief and loss, we might be able to move beyond it. There’s one element of that romanticism I’m not willing to let go, however, which is the sublime: those moments of awe tinged with fear that we experience in the presence of an enveloping vastness or a daunting power. There’s a sense of danger and possibility in those moments – something I hope a listener may sense in Become Ocean.”

Danger and possibility do indeed seem to sum up a lot of the piece’s atmosphere. And possibility, in fact, is something that Adams cites as an inspiration for his continuing work.

“I’m in my 72nd year now,” he says, “and what keeps me going is my faith in and my sense of responsibility to the next generations – the people who are going to have to sort through the rubble that my generation is leaving, and bring about new ways of living together. I feel as if I’m writing letters to people I’ll never know, and it’s wonderful to think that Become Ocean seems to have inspired them. I’m delighted that the Glasgow performance with Alba G Corral is happening, and I’m especially pleased that this music is speaking to younger listeners and a younger visual artist in ways that will no doubt surprise and delight me.”

The RSNO perform John Luther Adams’ Become Ocean at Tramway, Glasgow on 28 September, with live visuals from Alba G Corral. Sonica runs 19-29 September , see https://sonic-a.co.uk/