Composer Michael Colgrass is well known equally on both sides of the Canadian-American border. He grew up a percussionist but soon added composition to his repertoire, eventually becoming a full-time composer, including winning the 1978 Pulitzer Prize. This release collects three of Colgrass's orchestral works. Letter from Mozart takes an imaginary theme from Mozart, reworked in a modern style. Side by Side may be the only concerto of its kind: one performer (the inimitable Joanne Kong on this disc) playing harpsichord and piano simultaneously. Colgrass draws on his roots as a jazz drummer and a classical composer in The Schubert Birds, an inventive mash-up of genre and style inspired by Franz Schubert and Charlie 'Bird' Parker.