Boston, MA — “Continuing to shine in overlooked music from the last century (Gramophone),” the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, led by acclaimed conductor Gil Rose, today releases two new recordings on its Grammy Award-winning in-house label, BMOP/sound. Ross Lee Finney: Landscapes Remembered, by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Ross Lee Finney, comprises a trio of works that hint at American folk music. Shuying Li: The Last Hive Mind documents the young composer’s artistic journey and maturation of her compositional voice across five evocative orchestral works.
Born in Minnesota, Ross Lee Finney (1906-1977) consistently allowed his Midwestern roots to shine through in his work, bringing a sense of the rustic American prairie to his abstract international style. With his lifetime spanning nearly the entirety of the previous century, Finney’s compositions provide a glimpse into the world of 20th-century American concert music. This BMOP recording features Three Pieces, scored for percussion, celesta, strings, and tape recorder (1962), Landscapes Remembered (1971), and Symphony No. 4 (1973) — highlighting a period of Finney’s output from the 1960s to the early 1970s. This period found him embracing the contemporary trends of the day, including serialism and electronics. Listeners can hear references to American folk traditions, explorations of 12-tone technique, and the Proustian focus on memory.
Praised by the Seattle Times as “a real talent” with “skillful orchestral writing, very colorful language and huge waves of sound,” Shuying Li (b.1989) is an award-winning composer who began her musical education in her native China.
The Last Hive Mind album is a retrospective that offers a fascinating glimpse of how the music and personality of one of today’s most exceptional composers of her generation have evolved over the past 13 years. All five works on the album illustrate her distinct voice, however they are also snapshots of that voice during different moments within a period of self-discovery. Purple Mountains (2023) is derived from elements of Li’s eponymous opera concerning the Nanking Massacre, a months-long atrocity committed during the Second Sino-Japanese War in the late 1930s. Miss Ying-Ning (2021) is a series of vignettes on a curious, ancient Chinese folktale, while Out Came The Sun (2017) is a response to postpartum depression. Overture to “The Siege” (2012) has its roots in Fortress Besieged, a pillar of 20th-century Chinese literature. The title piece The Last Hive Mind (2021) was inspired by a concept from an episode of the science fiction television series Black Mirror. According to Li, “The Last Hive Mind marked a turning point in the maturation of my compositional voice. For the first time, I allowed myself to create something unapologetically fun, adventurous, and emotionally direct.”
About Gil Rose
Gil Rose is one of today’s most trailblazing conductors, praised as “amazingly versatile” (The Boston Globe) with “a sense of style and sophistication” (Opera News). Equally at home performing core repertoire, new music, and lesser-known historic symphonic and operatic works, “Gil Rose is not just a fine conductor, but a peerless curator, sniffing out—and commissioning—off-trend, unheralded, and otherwise underplayed repertoire who nevertheless holds to unfailingly high standards of quality. In doing so, he’s built an indefinable, but unmistakable, personal aesthetic” (WQXR). A global leader in American contemporary music, GRAMMY Award-winner Rose is the founder of the performing and recording ensemble, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), who “bring an endlessly curious and almost archaeological mind to programming…with each concert, each recording, an essential step in a better direction” (The New York Times), as well as the founder of Odyssey Opera, praised by The New York Times as “bold and intriguing.” GilRoseConductor.com
About BMOP
The Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) is the premier orchestra in the United States dedicated exclusively to commissioning, performing, and recording music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. A unique institution of crucial artistic importance to today’s musical world, BMOP exists to disseminate exceptional orchestral music of the present and recent past via performances and recordings of the highest caliber. Founded by Artistic Director Gil Rose in 1996, GRAMMY Award-winning BMOP has championed the works of composers whose careers span nine decades. Each season, Rose brings BMOP’s award-winning orchestra, renowned soloists, and influential composers to the stage of New England Conservatory’s historic Jordan Hall in a series that offers orchestral programming of unrivaled eclecticism. Musical America’s 2016 Ensemble of the Year, BMOP was awarded the 2021 Special Achievement Award from Gramophone Magazine as “an organization that has championed American music of the 20th and 21st century with passion and panache.” The musicians of BMOP are consistently lauded for the energy, imagination, and passion with which they infuse the music of the present era.
About BMOP/sound
BMOP/sound, BMOP’s independent record label, was created in 2008 to provide a platform for BMOP’s extensive archive of music, as well as to provide widespread, top-quality, permanent access to both classics of the 20th century and the music of today’s most innovative composers. BMOP/sound has garnered praise from the national and international press.
It is the recipient of a 2020 GRAMMY Award for Tobias Picker: Fantastic Mr. Fox as well as nine GRAMMY nominations, and its releases have appeared on the year-end “Best of” lists of The New York Times, The Boston Globe, National Public Radio, American Record Guide, DownBeat, WBUR, NewMusicBox, and others. Admired, praised, and sought after by artists, presenters, critics, and audiophiles, BMOP and BMOP/sound are uniquely positioned to redefine the new music concert and recording experience. Launched in 2019, BMOP's digital radio station, BMOP/radio, streams BMOP/sound's entire catalog and airs special programming.
# # # Ross Lee Finney: Landscapes Remembered (#1105) |
Shuying Li: The Last Hive Mind: (#1106) BMOP/sound | Release Date: July 18, 2025 For more information on BMOP/sound, please visit BMOP.org. For media inquiries regarding BMOP/sound, please contact: April Thibeault, AMT PR, 917.355.8359, april@amtpublicrelations.com.
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