Canadian-Finnish composer Matthew Whittall (b. 1975) began his studies in Montreal. He earned degrees in performance and composition from Vanier College, the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and Stony Brook University, before settling in Finland in 2001. There he studied at the Sibelius Academy, receiving his Doctor of Music degree with honors in 2013. Whittall’s prolific output covers a wide variety of genres, particularly orchestra, voice, chorus, chamber and solo instrumental works, with occasional forays into electronics. His works have been commissioned and performed by the Helsinki Philharmonic, the Finnish Radio Symphony, the Helsinki Chamber Choir the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra, among others, and have featured in festivals and radio broadcasts across Europe, North America and Japan. This release, which was named Record of the Year by Finnish broadcasting company YLE, features works by Whittall that seem to long for a world that doesn’t exist. They depict nature as a realm of romanticized and mystified beauty. The featured soloist across these works is hornist Tommi Hyytinen.