Forty years ago, John C. Adams ’69 was the first Harvard undergraduate to submit an original composition as his senior thesis. The music concentrator then went on to become one of the most renowned American composers of the twentieth century.

Adams returned to his alma mater last night for the second time since 2007 to discuss his setting to music of Walt Whitman’s poem “The Wound Dresser,” in the company of two of Harvard’s most distinguished professors: University Present Drew G. Faust and English professor Helen Vendler.

The discussion is one in the “Learning from Performers” series sponsored by the Office for the Arts.

Adams, a minimalist composer, is most famous for his opera “Nixon in China,” and in 2003 he won the Pulitzer Prize for his choral commemoration of the Sept. 11 attacks, entitled “On the Transmigration of Souls.”

The Bach Society Orchestra, which Adams conducted as an undergraduate, opened the event with a performance of the work that was the focal point of the event.

In a rare interdisciplinary panel, Faust lent her Civil War history expertise and Vendler provided a literary perspective on the poem.

Former Bach Society Orchestra musical director, Aram Demirjian ’08, conducted the performance with John D. Kapusta ’09 singing the baritone solo.

Adams compared the student performers to the subjects of Whitman’s poem.

“John [Kapusta] is exactly the age of all these young men who were slaughtered on the field,” he said. “The meditation I was experiencing while listening to this performance—it’s basically older men sending younger men to battle.”

Much of the night’s discussion focused on the American identity and its reflection in art. “[Whitman] wanted to be the poet of the American vernacular,” Adams said.

OFA Program Manager Thomas Lee said that the idea for the event yesterday evening emerged from a conversation between Faust and Adams in 2007 when Adams was presented with the Harvard Arts Medal.

“They talked about their shared love for Whitman’s poetry,” Lee said.

Faust has made fostering the growth of Harvard’s arts programs a priority since her appointment as president in 2007.

Last year, she announced the formation of a “Task Force for the Arts” that was charged with making recommendations about how to improve Harvard’s arts program. The committee’s final report is expected to be released this fall.

“It’s so arresting to me to hear his reaction to [“The Wound Dresser”] and his rendition of it,” Faust said after the performance. “He is one of Harvard’s most distinguished sons.”