 Making Music in the Anthropocene: How Should Artists Engage with Times of Crisis? 
In this short essay, originally published in 2015 in Slate, the author looks at the relation between art-making and an awareness of the disasters associated with the Anthropocene: can we, should we, still focus on making works of art, detached from the world? Recalling his youthful involvement in environmental activism in Alaska, Adams remembers choosing to be a composer because, in that role, he was irreplaceable. For him, being fully engaged in a creative activity with no political agenda, or even a particular theme, allows him to make music that is authentically expressive, free of possible social meanings, and thus capable of inspiring renewed consciousness in its listeners. The responsibility of the artist is to their art, which may then help our species transform its way of being in the world.