Few recordings have stronger ties to New York City than this one. The composer, Justin Dello Joio, was born and bred there and is now on the faculties of New York University and the Juilliard School. Conductor Alan Gilbert’s parents were both New York Philharmonic violinists; Gilbert himself was music director of the orchestra from 2009 until 2017. Pianist Garrick Ohlsson was born in Bronxville. Cellist Carter Brey, principal cellist of the New York Philharmonic since 1996, grew up in Westchester County. The American Brass Quintet has been in residence at the Juilliard School since 1987 and Juilliard graduate Colin Fowler is the longtime music director of the Mark Morris Dance Group in New York.

Dello Joio’s Piano Concerto Oceans Apart, completed in November 2022, was commissioned by the Boston Symphony and Radio France Philharmonic orchestras. Ohlsson, for whom it was written, premiered it this past January with the Boston Symphony under Gilbert. The concerto unfolds in just over 19 uninterrupted minutes of idiomatic piano-writing and immensely resourceful orchestration. Ohlsson brings an extraordinarily rich palette of touch and articulation to this challenging score, which requires a chamber-music-like precision and sensitivity as the piano interacts with orchestral solos and small ensembles. The resultant colours and textures are dazzling.

As a six-year-old, Dello Joio played a piece called Prelude: To a Young Musician by his father, Norman Dello Joio (1913-2008). As Justin began Due per due, his father died, and the piece’s first movement, ‘Elegia: To an Old Musician’ echoes and reciprocates his father’s dedication. Serious yet far from lugubrious, the expression of undeniable loss is tempered with an ambience of affection. In contrast, the furious activity of the ‘Moto in perpetuo’ last movement is relentless. Even in the central trio-like section, with both cello and piano in their uppermost reaches, the manic energy continues unabated. Brey and O’Riley acquit themselves magnificently.

Blue and Gold Music was written for the 300th anniversary of Trinity School, a private preparatory school on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Recorded here by the musicians who premiered it in 2008 at Riverside Church with its gigantic Aeolian-Skinner organ, Blue and Gold Music is an occasional piece consisting of seven minutes of sheer aural delight. The difficult brass-writing is flawlessly executed, with the overall high-quality ensemble values deftly captured in the spacious acoustic of Riverside Church.