Hope

Hope sprang directly from the lockdown experience of Daniel Hope, who worked tirelessly to keep the music going during those long, dark months. The celebrated violinist is the ultimate collaborative musician: Even with his own super-responsive Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Hope is a first among equals, and this album finds him bringing many of his musician friends back into the studio. Tracing an arc from Renaissance composer John Dowland to the recorded premiere of a piece by French-Lebanese composer Bechara El Khoury (“Byblos, the Old City”), Hope gives us music, fittingly, of optimism. It’s done beautifully, the glorious arrangement of Ariel Ramírez’s Misa Criolla—a work Hope has loved since his teens—taking center stage.