Project Rainbow And The Philadelphia Experiment

In 1933, Florence Price's 'Symphony No. 1' was the first symphonic work by a Black woman to be played by a major American orchestra. Steeped in American folk music, spirituals, and church hymns, Price's celebrated work reflects her experience as a Black woman raised in the post-Civil War South. Florence Price composed her 'Third Symphony' in the midst of the Chicago Renaissance and it reflects her growth as a composer, taking more risks, adding modern techniques, and expanding emotional elements as compared to her more traditional 'First Symphony'. The 2 symphonies, played by the Philadelphia Orchestra and conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, were recorded in Verizon Hall at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia in early 2021.

Following Departure, an album hailed by NPR as a singular combination of swagger and stunning technique, Daniil Trifonov completes his two-part Destination: Rachmaninov journey with Arrival, a coupling of Rachmaninov s Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 3 performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra under the baton of Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Arrival also features Trifonov s own transcriptions of Rachmaninov s Vocalise and The Silver Sleigh Bells.

… you get here is perhaps the best of all worlds: a major symphonic work idiomatically played by a first-rate virtuoso orchestra under the hands of a conductor whose contact with the work looks back to the symphony's very creation, captured in vivid, realistic sound none of the russian maestros mentioned above could ever aspire to.