A unique voice in 21st century music, Ellen Zwilich is the recipient of numerous prizes and honours, including the 1983 Pulitzer Prize in Music (the first woman ever to receive this coveted award), a Guggenheim Fellowship, and four Grammy nominations. Zwilich’s Violin Concerto, described by The New York Times as ‘a love-song to the violin’, is a wonderfully engaging work whose second movement is based around Bach’s great Chaconne. The exotically scored Rituals is in four movements, each stemming from a ritual associated with percussion, but with the orchestral interaction providing an essential element in the musical form. In this remarkable work the composer makes use of instruments from around the world, creating a thrilling range of sounds and musical reflections of a spiritual dimension.