“Project W is an initiative by the Chicago Sinfonietta to help highlight and promote ‘contemporary, diverse, women composers,’ ” writes Jarrett Goodchild in Thursday’s (9/12) icareifyoulisten.com. The first track on the Sinfonietta’s new Project W album is “Dances in the Canebrakes by Florence Price … originally written as a solo piano piece and arranged for orchestra by William Grant Still after Price passed away in 1953…. Sin Fronteras … by Clarice Assad takes the listener on a musical journey through the Americas…. Jessie Montgomery’s Coincident Dances … focuses on how a simple walk through her city [New York] exudes many different sounds and experiences…. The two tracks that follow, #metoo and Charukeshi Bandish, are both by Indian-American composer Reena Esmail [whose] blending of Indian and Western sounds is pervasive and refreshing. Esmail captures the rage, frustration, and solidarity of the #MeToo movement and injects it into her sound…. The album’s final work, Dance Card, is a multi-movement piece by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Jennifer Higdon…. All of the movements highlight the string section, each one is drastically different in character and style. … Project W should be considered a great success and a large step forward.”
Posted September 13, 2019
