Chicago Sinfonietta, Mei-Ann Chen, Clarice Assad, Jennifer Higdon, Jessie Montgomery, Reena Esmail.

FLORENCE PRICE (1887-1953)
Dances in the Canebrakes (9:28)

CLARICE ASSAD (b. 1978)
Sin Fronteras (13:27)

JESSIE MONTGOMERY (b. 1981)
Coincident Dances (11:40)

REENA ESMAIL (b. 1983)
Charukeshi Bandish (2:58)

REENA ESMAIL (b. 1983)
#metoo (13:02)

JENNIFER HIGDON (b. 1962)
Dance Card (23:07)

Conductor Mei-Ann Chen and the Chicago Sinfonietta — the adventurous, MacArthur Award-winning orchestra that champions racial, ethnic, and gender diversity in classical music — give world-premiere recordings of newly commissioned American works by Jennifer Higdon, Clarice Assad, Jessie Montgomery, and Reena Esmail on Project W: Works by Diverse Women Composers, the capstone project of its 30th anniversary season.

Higdon, winner of a Pulitzer Prize and two Grammy Awards, invites listeners to luxuriate in the beauty of a virtuosic string orchestra with Dance Card, a five-moment suite that San Francisco Classical Voice praised for its “pleasurable sounds” and “intellectual heft.” Assad is a Grammy-nominated, Brazilian-American composer and performer. Her Sin Fronteras (Without Borders) lives up to its title with an exotic blend of musical influences from throughout the Americas. Juilliard-trained African-American composer Montgomery, a violinist member of the acclaimed Catalyst Quartet and a collaborator with Yo-Yo Ma’s Silkroad Ensemble, imbues her Coincident Dances with the frenetic energy and multicultural sound worlds of her native New York City. Esmail, an Indian-American graduate of Juilliard and the Yale School of Music, draws from Western and Hindustani (north Indian) classical music for #metoo, a composition rooted in her own personal experiences.

Founded by pioneering African-American conductor Paul Freeman (1936–2015), the Chicago Sinfonietta also presents the first-ever recording William Grant Still’s orchestral arrangement of Florence Price’s buoyant, lyrical Dances in the Canebrakes.

ROCO, Mei-Ann Chen

CD 1
KARIM AL-ZAND
Visions from Another World
1 Ronde fantastique (3:50)
2 Funeral Cortège of the Silkworm (6:03)
3 The Spinning Ballerina (4:22)

REENA ESMAIL
4 Teen Murti for String Orchestra (9:54)

DEREK BURMEL
Murmurations
5 Gathering at Gretna Green (6:37)
6 Gliding over Algiers (9:07)
7 Swarming Rome (5:36)

CD 2
ANTHONY DiLORENZO
1 Jabberwocky (19:10)

MARCUS MARONEY
Concerto for Chamber Orchestra
2 Epigraph (5:23)
3 Variations (7:30)
4 Ostinato (5:08)

ANTHONY DiLORENZO
5 Anthem of Hope: Houston Strong (4:32)

12 Songs, 1 Hour, 27 Minutes
Released: November 16, 2018
℗ 2018

Click here for link to recording on Innova Recordings, the label of the American Composers Forum.

Click here for CD booklet.

Chicago Sinfonietta, Mei-Ann Chen, Harlem Quartet

MICHAEL ABELS
1Delights & Dances for String Quartet and String Orchestra (13:03)*

BENJAMIN LEES
Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra (20:49)
2 I. Allegro con brio (7:42)
3 II. Andante cantando (7:32)
4 III. Allegro energico (5:28)

AN-LUN HUANG
5 “Saibei Dance” from Saibei Suite No. 2 (4:08)

LEONARD BERNSTEIN arr. RANDALL CRAIG FLEISCHER
West Side Story Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra (25:47)*
6 Mambo (2:06)
7 Cha Cha (2:02)
8 Maria (2:32)
9 Tonight (3:17)
10 Cadenza (4:44)
11 Prologue (2:42)
12 America (2:56)
13 Quintet (3:18)
14 Cadenza 2 (0:59)
15 Finale (1:07)

*World Premiere Recording(s)

Delights & Dances, the Chicago Sinfonietta’s first recording with its new music director, award-winning conductor Mei-Ann Chen, does what this singular ensemble does best: it captivates listeners of all ages and diverse ethnic backgrounds through irresistible music and superb musicianship. On Delights & Dances, the Chicago Sinfonietta, a standard-bearer for racial diversity in the orchestral world, works its magic through a one-of-kind program featuring music for string quartet and orchestra, with guest artist, the Harlem Quartet.

The album takes its title from Michael Abels’ witty, soulful, and infectiously rhythmic Delights & Dances, which receives its world premiere recording. The greatly admired contemporary African-American composer wrote the work for the Harlem Quartet, an ensemble of first-place laureates of the Sphinx Competition for outstanding young black and Latino string players. A New York Times review of the work’s 2007 premiere, presented at Carnegie Hall, described the piece as “an energetic arrangement . . . which incorporates jazz, blues, bluegrass and Latin dance elements” — and which the Harlem Quartet “played with panache.”